This seems very un-American. The government dictating how you run your business ?
> “do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.”
Is that even legal to add such an arbitrary and opinionated reason to a government grant?
I applaud them for taking a stand, it seems to be more and more rare these days.
> Playing nice seemed to not work for White people because they are systemically discriminated against in almost every Western and non-Western country.
I'm white and not discriminated against in my Western-adjacent country (Czech Republic) and think most of Europe is the same.
I see race-based politics as primarily a US thing: both the militant "diversity advocates" and the white supremacists. From my point of view over the ocean they are quite similar: putting importance of skin colour over other things.
As a white American, this feels insulting to all those around me. Diversity is what made the US so great. White people are just one tone of the human palette.
They are for racism. Treat one group different from others based on race.
We can debate whether doing this rights historical wrongs but we can't pretend it is not racist to treat different people of different skin colors differently.
> They are for racism. Treat one group different from others based on race.
"Racism" means the oppression of one group because of race.
In an historically racist society (writing this in New Zealand) righting those historical wrongs involves some treating "...one group different from others based on race."
It is bad enough here, and it continues here explicitly by the current government (indigenous people just lost a bunch of property rights because they were indigenous, blatant, official, statutory racism), but according to people I respect in the USA it is considerably worse there.
"ACT New Zealand party, a junior partner in the governing centre-right coalition government, last week unveiled the bill, which it had promised during last year’s election, arguing that those rights should also apply to non-Indigenous citizens."
How does grant others the same rights turn into racism. Shouldn't everyone have those rights including groups that are bigger minorites in New Zealand like blacks of Indians from India?
When we single out groups for special treatment we exclude others who might need it more but who's voices are softer.
It might be worse in the US compared to New Zealand but compared to most of the rest of the world: Middle East, India, Africa, Europe, Russia, China, Korea the US is the least racist place but also has the biggest anti-racism industry which makes their voiced louder.
I am talking of the Foreshore and Seabed Act (under a different name) that overturned settled case law and disapropriated IWI claims for property rights.
Māori have their property rights confiscated regularly. About every twenty or thirty years there is another round
That said the racism here is mild compared to reports from the USA
When you become what you are fighting against you become the problem.
If the issue is not using a person's race to make blanket judgements against them then using someone's race to to counterbalance historical is equally as wrong.
The message you are telling everyone is you should use someone's race to judge them. The people in power changes but the racism never goes away.
You end up with foolish ideas like reparations where the people demanding money are a product of a union between a slave and slave owner where half of you should pay the other half.
Or quota systems that exclude minorities because they aren't the right race.
The racism you want to keep needs to be let go. You can't say racism is bad but then use it to enrich yourself.
People have been getting the message "you should use someone's race to judge them" in my country for over a hundred years
In the USA since the seventeenth century
Here Māori property is confiscated with gay abandon, laws written specifically for that purpose
In the USA there was slavery. It has cast a long shadow, and still politicians are moving mountains to corral the black vote so it does not threaten entrenched privileges
"A significant portions of Māori land were confiscated by the New Zealand government, primarily after the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s through legislation like the New Zealand Settlements Act 1863. This process, known as raupatu, resulted in the seizure of over a million hectares of land from various iwi"
Wasn't there a Waitangi Tribunal investing breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi? Isn't there a Māori land court setup to deal with those issues?
Are there specific instances you want to refer to? We would like to understand a little more.
No one is trying to corral the black vote in the US. It generally goes to one party. It does not threaten the powerful. Black vs rich powerful isn't really an issue as many powerful people are black. Working class vs rich powerful is more of the classic stereotype.
You can do a lot about racism from education to fairness laws but the one thing you can't do is use racism to stop racism. That's my core message.
That's my point. Why not give food to all? You just want to give food to who you think is hungry based on great grandparents being hungry. Everyone should eat even the obese.
The entire issue is that, despite the law, some people refuse to feed everyone. And not a small handful of people, but a sizable enough population that their actions mean millions aren't fed.
That's my point.
Your "solution" only works if racism is eliminated. It is not eliminated, despite eduction and fairness laws.
So we can either chose to feed the hungry or let them starve in the name of a false, ignorant, and naive position of neutrality.
No one takes them to jail; companies and organizations can run however they want, unless they break laws.
It doesn't mean that the government that runs and wins on an anti-DEI agenda should give them money.
> Is that even legal to add such an arbitrary and opinionated reason to a government grant?
On the surface, it is simply a requirement that the grantee comply with existing non-discrimination laws coupled with a completely fictional example of a potential violation (“discriminatory equity ideology”) provided as an example that happens to have an initialism collision with a real thing. This is legal and (but for the propaganda example) routine.
But... the text viewed in isolation is not the issue.
I have no idea what point you think you're making, but this happens all the time. Do you really think you should be obligated to let strangers buy into your private business?
Ah yeah you're right. What they actually mean is that DEI is when you build so many equity preference multiples into your term sheets the employee option pool becomes entirely worthless.
Could you clarify that you're suggesting that "it's un-American" for the government to require that the grantee not violate any of its anti-discrimination laws?
> This seems very un-American. The government dictating how you run your business ?
Yes, and anyone who takes the Barry Goldwater libertarian position that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 constituted an un-American government dictate about how you can run your business with respect to discrimination based on demographic categories probably agrees with you. There's a real sense in which this administration is invoking the formally-neutral legal infrastructure that has been built up over many years by liberals with the intention of securing the civil rights of various marginalized groups, and ostentatiously using it as a weapon against groups that are discriminating against white people or white men in particular and feel like they are acting righteously in doing so.
More generally, there's all sorts of laws in every country including America that involve the government dictating how you run your business, or how you run your business if you want to be eligible for government grants. No one actually thinks that a law becomes illegitimate if it dictates how a person can run their business, unless they are such a radical anarchist that they entirely reject the legitimacy of any kind of government or law at all.
Federal money always has lots of strings attached. The specific rules differ by the specific funding vehicle. The main vehicle is the Federal Acquisitions Regulation (FAR); you can review their rule here:
I think people defend anti discrimination or are against it depending on how the anti discrimination policy discriminates discrimination.
We always discriminate. We have to. But only some discrimination is allowed and some are not allowed. The difference is what kind of discrimination people feel is fair and unfair.
I agree that humans discriminate inherently, although I would argue that what differentiates us is whether we struggle against that impulse.
On some level, the idea that we all discriminate has the potential to help us move beyond the "racist/not-racist" dichotomy. (I prefer the formulation "we all discriminate" over the dubious alternative "we're all racist".) But I'm not sure it will ever achieve mass acceptance, because it activates the human impulse to self-justify.
I dream that one day someone will come up with version of this idea that is universally acceptable.
I would imagine it is much easier to enforce as part of a grant agreement that organisations have signed. Especially if the law is either not really a law (yet), or it might be invalidated by a court on free speech grounds. There's probably a reason someone wrote it into the grant agreement, and that they're declaring DEI stands for something other than the familiar Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.
What does this even mean? Are you trying to imply that funding for research that lead to the various tech powering the modern internet was done only by organizations that never before or since considered trying to source candidates from a variety of places because they believe different viewpoints have value?
Or are you trying to hang this entire thing on a definition of DEI that somehow always and exclusively means illegal race or gender based discrimination (I assume against white men)?
These conversations are so absurd sometimes. I'm baffled by how spitting mad people can decide they are to fight these straw men. Then I'm annoyed by (and suspicious of) the overwhelming silence from most of these sources when it comes to other obvious examples of racial discrimination or things like the government trying to remove history books that mention slavery.
The "in violation of Federal Law" is crucial. You can argue it's only there to cover the admin's ass, but Federal Law (the actual statues) already prohibits any favoritism or discrimination on the basis of skin color etc.
The prior admin made it so that their chosen DEI programs fit "Federal Law". This admin has done a complete 180. Courts haven't tested any of this yet. It's all a hammer being wielded by the side in power.
> “do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.”
Is that even legal to add such an arbitrary and opinionated reason to a government grant?
I applaud them for taking a stand, it seems to be more and more rare these days.