Every tragedy needs a scapegoat.
For the plane crash over the Potomac River on Jan. 29 that killed all 67 people on board both a passenger plane and Blackhawk helicopter, that scapegoat is DEI, or, for the uninitiated, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies.
But what is DEI? Is it a way for the government to give handouts to people who don’t deserve them? Is it a piece of legislature to force companies to give unqualified minorities high-ranking positions just because they’re marginalized? Is it “reverse racism” as many political social media personalities proclaim?
The answer is none of the above. Under the flashy headlines, rage-inducing Twitter/X posts and otherwise sensationalized propaganda, DEI is just a way to equalize the playing field. It’s a policy that incentivizes the HR departments of companies to look past superficial qualities of job applicants and employees – things like race, sexuality, gender, economic class, physical ability or disability. It just allows exceptionally skilled, marginalized individuals to take advantage of the same opportunities as non-marginalized people – a concept that used to be actively attacked by state and federal laws during Jim Crow-era segregation.
Even Carlsbad Unified School District has a DEI policy in place, voted in in 2023.
However, many government workers, like “special government employee” and head of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk, use their platforms to convince people to turn back the clock and return to previous discriminatory educational and corporate practices – President Donald Trump being one of these elected officials.
“We have to have our smartest people. It doesn’t matter what they look like, how they speak, who they are; intellect matters, talent,” Trump said in a press conference following the crash. “You can’t have regular people doing that job.”
While at first glance, Trump’s words indicate support for DEI, his statement is a dog whistle. His conception of what DEI is is a distortion of reality. Trump and his cabinet believe that these policies are allowing people to get jobs they are not qualified for simply because of their minority status. They think that before DEI, deserving minorities were already being hired for high-ranking jobs (a factually incorrect statement).
When interpreted in this context, his words are unequivocally anti-DEI.
Trump continued by asserting that people with physical or mental disabilities should not be able to work as air traffic controllers, despite there being no evidence that disabled individuals were working during the crash. This targeting of disabled people is used as outrage bait. He uses the group that is perceived as being the most incompetent in order to make his constituents angry about the “diversity hires” and DEI policies that, in his eyes, must have caused this travesty.
“The initiative is part of the FAAs diversity and inclusion hiring plan which says diversity is integral to achieving the FAAs mission of safe and efficient travel. I don’t think so,” Trump later said of the Federal Aviation Administration. “I think it’s just the opposite.”
Because much of the population may not realize the impact that DEI policies have on efficiency and safety, Trump can make this statement and still have most people – even some minorities – on his side.
Because of Trump’s expertise in turning the public against policies that would help them, it is important to understand the FAA’s (at this point, previous) stance on inclusive hiring practices. By making an effort to hire all qualified applicants, regardless of minority status, companies and agencies with DEI policies essentially increase the size of the pool they hire from. The larger the applicant pool, the more qualified people can be hired, which ends up increasing safety and efficiency.
It is also crucial to understand what reverting to pre-DEI policies would mean for all Americans.
For minorities, many will have more trouble finding jobs – a task that is already more difficult for them due to persisting discrimination and generally oversaturated job markets. Some may even be demoted or fired once there is no incentive for companies to employ marginalized people.
In addition to tariffs spiking the prices of foreign-made goods and increasing demand for American products, this will also make living more expensive. Prices for goods like groceries and services like car repairs may rise as there are fewer qualified workers being hired and productivity inevitably slows down – contrary to Trump’s campaign promises.
Issues like these have the potential to affect every single American. All American citizens should support DEI for their friends, for their neighbors and for themselves.
