Under Biden-Harris administration, federal DEI initiatives, spending exploded, report

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to reduce government waste and employed successful entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the charge.

So far, spending on federal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies are prime targets for Musk and Ramaswamy, and a recent report shows just how widespread federal DEI spending has become.

The report from the conservative-leaning policy advocacy group Do No Harm concludes the Biden-Harris administration “infused DEI into the federal government” in 500 different ways.

Those examples include federal agencies starting dozens of equity training programs, doling out federal contracts and jobs based on race and gender and teaching Americans more about their country’s racism – past and present.

The DEI explosion took off after Democratic President Joe Biden issued executive orders on his first day in office as well as another in June 2021. The first executive order “established that affirmatively advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice, and equal opportunity is the responsibility of the whole of our Government.”

The second order established “that it is the policy of my Administration to cultivate a workforce that draws from the full diversity of the Nation.”

Biden also issued other executive orders, including around gender and sexuality, to the same effect his first year in office. Those orders gave federal bureaucrats direct orders, not just permission, to embrace DEI policies across the board.

And Do No Harm’s report shows they did, citing 80 “Equity Action Plans” submitted by agencies that promised over 500 taxpayer-funded actions.

Some of the actions are seemingly mild, such as the U.S. Social Security Administration tracking more racial data, while others, such as a blog for the Treasury Department that lectures Americans on racial inequality, appear more extreme.

The federal government also began implementing training programs for many federal employees that critics say embrace racial ideology and call “woke."

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, for example, invested in training for employees to consider equity more in its regulatory decisions.

“Training will address how equity and environmental justice involves removing barriers underserved communities may face in the context of the Commission’s practices, processes, and policies,” FERC said in its Equity Action Plan. “Training also will address how, consistent with FERC’s mission and statutory duties, the Commission considers the impact of its actions on such communities. More specific trainings geared toward the responsibilities of different program offices and issue areas also may be identified or developed and offered.”

Other actions seem to favor some groups over others. Changing the “percentage” of benefits received necessarily requires giving contracts, grants, or other federal resources to certain groups, almost always at the expense of white Americans, even more often white men.

For example, the American Battle Monuments Commissions in its Equity Action Plan called for “expanding the percentage of U.S.-based contracted goods and services awarded to minority-owned, women-owned, and service disabled veteran-owned enterprises.”

In fact, the ABMC pledged to pay a worker for this sole purpose.

The Smithsonian Institution, the federal steward of America’s past, promised to begin promoting a historical framework that emphasizes American racism in the past and today.

The federal group pledged to “Address the historical roots and contemporary impacts of race and racism in the United States and globally through interdisciplinary scholarship, creative partnerships, dialogue, education, and engagement.”

The Center Square has reported on other examples of DEI policies and grants becoming the norm in recent years as well, though much of this kind of spending began before the Biden-Harris administration.

Those include:

Roughly $2.6 million in taxpayer dollars to train students to promote critical race theory. Millions to train school teachers in DEI ideology around race and gender. A portion of New York's $9 billion in federal COVID funding was spent training staff in ‘privilege’ and to recognize ‘equity warriors,’" among other related themes. $1.2 million for research find evidence that racism is the culprit for minorities struggling to sleep at night.

However, a recent report from the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research found the federal government awarded more than $1 billion in contracts last year to consulting firms – based on a search of contracts, grants and other programs that mentioned “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” 

Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo's finding also showed a rapid increase in such spending from 2019, when the federal government spent only $27 million in contracts that mention diversity and inclusion.

“But after the death of George Floyd in 2020, the federal government and private contractors went all-in on DEI, seeking to implement the Biden administration’s ‘whole-of-government’ equity agenda,” Rufo writes in an article for the institute’s publication City Journal.