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Commitments to colorblindness and merit are not Trumpian extremism, they’re common sense

January 23, 2025

On Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump proclaimed that we as a nation would “forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.” This pledge not only captures the timeless American spirit, but also echoes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., that Americans should “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

In the ensuing days, President Trump followed up with a fresh array of executive actions taken to reclaim our country’s foundational values, including orders ending federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, combatting racial discrimination in institutions that receive federal funding, restoring merit in the Federal Aviation Administration, and pushing back against gender ideology.

The federal Office of Personnel Management issued a memo to all federal agencies and departments, urging them to begin taking steps to close all DEI offices by the end of the day on January 22. In Trump’s January 21st executive order on reviving the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement, the federal government is ordered to dismantle discriminatory DEI practices in the public sector and discourage similar practices in the private sector. The rationale is simple: both public agencies and private entities must comply with all federal civil-rights laws.

Altogether, these drastic policy developments reflect the new administration’s resolve to embrace a national (and bipartisan) consensus against endemic abuses of race, gender, and other immutable group characteristics in grievances-based public policies. Pernicious racial politics and illiberal impulses of tribalism have poisoned American society for so long that a decisive repudiation from top down is required. But in a progressive state like California where the political apparatus is focused on “Trump-proofing” the state with a $50 million legal fund, the trickle-down trajectory from national policy redress to local implementation will be long, winding and fraught with defiance.

To start, progressive lawmakers and public policy bureaucrats are not shying away from pushing out race-based proposals. So far, two reparations bills (Assembly Bill 7 and Assembly Bill 62) have been introduced into the state Assembly. The former seeks to give admissions preferences to descendants of slavery in all private and public institutions of higher education. The latter intends to enact legislation on reparations for “racially motivated eminent domain,” effectively reviving Senate Bill 1050, which was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September 2024.

Just around the New Year, my organization took Sacramento County to court to challenge its race-based child welfare program, which offers $725 in monthly stipends only to low-income parents of “child age 5 or younger, who is Black, American Indian, or Alaska Native.” Families should not be discriminated against on the basis of race. We will prevail in halting this blatant racial discrimination done in the name of “health equity.”

In addition to facing political animosity and policy resistance, reforms to dial down DEI will also encounter institutional inertia.

For instance, most California colleges and universities, private and public, have the ideological function baked into their organizational structures, strategic goals, and daily operations. Last summer, the University of California, Santa Barbara offered up to $430,000 in annual compensation for an administrative post titled “Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” and filled the position in five months. A recent College Fix analysis reveals that UC Berkeley implements 30 different DEI programs on a $25 million annual budget. California State University is also a corporate partner to the PhD Project, a public-private partnership that provides certain business Ph.D. students with financial support on the basis of race. UC Riverside platforms a “Structural Racism Reading Group,” which tasks members to read books relating to “Justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging.”

One may brush aside the fact that over six million Californian voters chose Trump in last year’s presidential election. But it is hard to discount the resolute majority of the electorate, numbered at 9.65 million, who rejected Proposition 16 over four years ago, which sought to legalize government preferences on the basis of race, sex, gender, ethnicity or national origin.

In this sense, Trump’s January 20th executive order, which revokes Executive Order 11246 (federal affirmative action with a focus on preferences rather than non-discrimination), mirrors the civil rights battles fought in California. 54.55% of Californian voters supported the passage of Prop. 209 in 1996 and a larger, 57.23% reaffirmed the state’s ban on race-based affirmative action in 2020. While California policymakers might support such discriminatory policies, both Trump and the vast majority of Californians do not.

Moving away from racialized politics and toward the common-sense center should be valued by Americans of all political persuasions.

Policy adjustment at the federal level is only the beginning. It is up to local stakeholders and advocates to concretize the changes and help enforce the rule of our land – the U.S. Constitution and its guarantee of equal protection under the laws.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Wenyuan Wu is the executive director of the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation.

Orange County Register

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Commitments to colorblindness and merit are not Trumpian extremism, they’re common sense

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