On GOP Efforts to Dismantlethe Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Bill

On Wednesday, November 21, Reps. Jasmine Crockett and Summer Lee spoke up against the GOP-authored H.R. 8706 legislation that would close all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion federal offices. Staff in those offices would be fired, and their reassignment to other roles banned.

Texas Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett
There has been no oppression for the white man in this country. You tell me which white men were dragged out of their homes … all the way across an ocean and told, “You are going to work!”
I practice law but some of you don’t realize that I actually was a business major at of rhs college in Memphis, Tennessee and the emphasis that I got in my business degree was on Finance. As I traveled the country campaigning this election cycle one of the things that I talked about was this idea that in Finance we always promote this idea of diversity.

If you know anything about a portfolio the one thing that you want to do is make sure that it’s as diverse as possible because at times certain stocks will perform better than others, they will exemplify various strengths and weaknesses, and together a diverse portfolio is usually what any good Finance person would promote. They wouldn’t promote {for instance} that you solely invest in vanilla wafers believing that that is going to be the strongest portfolio. Instead, they might want to add some chocolate cake and some Twinkies into the mix to make sure that we have the best portfolio because there will be different preferences by different people and, again, there will be different strengths.

As it relates to diversity, when it comes to anything outside of making money — and to be clear we are losing GDP every time we try to push back on this idea of diversity because all of us bring something different to the table — you consistently said over and over the word “oppression.” Every time you said {the word), it was almost as if I was hearing nails on a chalkboard because it seems like you don’t understand the definition of “oppression”. I ask you to refer to Google to help you out.

Oppression is prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control. That is the definition of Oppression. So, as I sit here as a black woman who practices Civil Rights, let me tell you the reason my colleagues want to make sure you (understand) the same black history your side of the aisle wants to delete out of classrooms, because you …misuse words like oppression.

There has been no oppression for the white man in this country. You tell me which white men were dragged out of their homes, dragged all the way across an ocean and told, “You are going to go work; we are going to steal your wives; we are going to rape your wives.” That is oppression.

We didn’t ask to be here! We are not the same migrants that y’all come up against. We didn’t run away from home; we were stolen. So, yeah, we are going to be offended when you sit here and act like (this). And don’t let it escape you that it is white men on this side of the aisle telling us people of color on this side of the aisle that y’all are the ones being oppressed. That y’all are the ones that are being harmed. That is not the definition of oppression. u tell me the prolonged cruel or unjust treatment that you’ve that you have had and we can have a conversation.

There is an article from the Guardian from 2021 that said, back then, just three years ago, white men represent 30% of the population but 62% of office holders. These are the issues that we are constantly looking at. I can’t even tell you how many white men have served in this chamber, but I can tell you that I am only the 55th black woman to be elected to Congress.

So, when we started to talk about these numbers {as they relate to diversity, equity and inclusion being the problem}, the reality is that when it comes to financial performance, companies with more diverse workforces are more likely to outperform their competitors’ companies in the top quartile for racial diversity and are 35% more likely to outperform their peers on profitability

Companies with diverse executive teams are 25% more likely to generate greater profits. Diverse companies earn 2.5 times higher cash flow per employee. Diversity works! Until you can show me data that says otherwise, I think we need to go back to being a country that listens to experts and gets out of our feelings and recognizes again that racism is real in this country.

Until we stop pretending that it’s not, we will not solve the problems that we are consistently facing and that will bring real unity that we seek when we’re looking for a more perfect union.

Pennsylvania Congresswoman Summer Lee
Why do predominantly conservative white men believe that the success of a black person
or opportunity or access (for) a black person is an existential threat?
I am not in favor of dismantling the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Act or, more aptly, the Dismantling of any Semblance of Support or Opportunity for Certain Americans Act — and we know who those Americans are. {They are} Americans who have not enjoyed centuries of unfair advantages by keeping others enslaved or segregated or disenfranchised or incarcerated or redlined or gerrymandered or excluded by all.

They are Americans who’ve lived with disabilities or have their relationships criminalized or their gender expression demonized. If we’re being honest here this bill which will wipe out every diversity, equity and inclusion program in our Federal agencies plus those who contract with us plus those who receive grant money plus our schools is nothing new this is just the final piece of a decades-long obsession with targeting and dismantling anything that might give marginalized people a fair shot, including DEI programs which honestly started the second the Civil Rights Act passed.

Policies like affirmative action and Diversity, Equity, Inclusion are the closest things we’ve had to the mythical bootstraps that some of my colleagues insist, historically and currently, harmed communities’ need to pick themselves up by. After centuries of efforts to keep us out of schools and universities from jobs and elected office, Republicans targeting these policies are no accident.

Why do predominantly conservative white men believe that the success of a black person or opportunity or access (for) a black person is an existential threat? DEI has not given any unfair advantage that Society itself does not already confer on certain Americans. It merely exists to ensure that all other people — women, minoritized folks, queer folks, disabled folks — have the same opportunities to succeed and thrive in our workforce and our schools as people who have not had those opportunities systematically and legally stripped from them do.
Is our country not greater when all of us have opportunities to succeed and contribute and survive?

Our success and our survival as a nation is bound together. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs only exist to Band-Aid over decades of hell and centuries of discrimination against people’s skin color, their religion disabilities, gender or sexual orientations. You name it. Contrary to Republican conjecture, remedying past discrimination is not, in turn, a discrimination. We’re not going to sit here and pretend racism is over just because one black person on the Supreme Court agreed that it should be.

What DEI does not do is give some kind of magical pass to better jobs like some of our colleagues are implying. That middle word Equity does not mean more than or better than. It means treating people fairly and impartially it means working to fix generational and systemic discrimination to the betterment of all of us and all of our institutions. Instead, Republicans are trying to bastardize the term DEI to be a slur.

When Justice Katanji Brown Jackson was up for confirmation and when Vice President Harris was added to the ticket, they (were) called DEI-ers. They want you to believe that a Harvard graduate with over 20 years of experience, who happens to be a black woman, is not qualified but a Fox News personality is qualified to run the Department of Defense and that the WWE executive is qualified to run the Department of Education. Let’s be real! There is an attempt to create a direct correlation between our race, being a black person, and our qualifications so much to say that there is no way to be a black woman, there is no resume that a black person could have that would qualify them, unless that black person is a Republican, and there is a quota there.

And while all of this has happened at the top level of our government, I can promise you these same things are happening on every single level of government and private sector. But those people don’t have a national platform to speak out against discriminatory treatment. Where is a Federal worker supposed to turn when a co-worker says a racist comment to them in the breakroom.

Where is the same-sex couple who has been denied housing because of their relationship supposed to turn? Where is a pregnant woman who was fired for being pregnant supposed to go? Often the only place that they have (for) recourse are the Diversity Equity and Inclusion programs.
These folks just want to do their jobs serving the American people in an environment that feels safe and supports them. Making work a better, safer environment for some does not mean it automatically is worse for others. Those complaining about DEI training are probably the ones who need it the most.
My Republican colleagues have got to stop punching down on already marginalized communities and face their own fears of a Level Playing Field, privately.
It’s shameful.