On February 25 at 8 AM, over 500 students, faculty, and staff packed into the Board of Trustees meeting at University of Cincinnati. The rally was organized by the UC faculty union, AAUP. Attendees held signs that said “Defend DEI” and “We Want Academic Freedom” while chanting, “Hey hey, ho ho, SB1 has got to go!” The bill SB1, introduced in the Ohio State Legislature, would ban all DEI-related (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) initiatives in higher education, as well as bar faculty from going on strike. In other words, it would get rid of initiatives that affect a large layer of teachers and students, then forbid them from fighting for what they deserve. This DEI bill is being used as a cover to attack unions.

This protest came days after UC unveiled new transphobic bathroom signs labeled “biological men” and “biological women” in dorms to intimidate trans students, and force them to move to other floors or buildings with only a few days’ notice. This bending of the knee to Trump’s executive orders attacking “gender ideology extremism” provoked an uproar in the university. The rally against SB1 forced the administration to take down the new bathroom signs (many of which had already been removed by students). Additionally, the AAUP and student movement against SB1 is spreading across universities in Ohio, with days of action to protest the bill before it goes to Governor DeWine’s desk at the end of March.

These are the kinds of escalating and coordinated actions that can push back attacks from the right wing. The question is: why is the Trump administration so obsessed with DEI, and what will it take to stop the tidal wave of attacks on immigrants, trans people, and the oppressed?

The DEI Boogeyman

Trump has made out DEI programs to be public enemy #1. According to Trump, what started the LA fires? DEI. What caused the deadly helicopter-plane collision in DC? DEI. The Silicon Valley Bank Crash, the collapse of the Baltimore Bridge, and the assassination attempt on Trump? According to Republican lawmakers, they were caused by DEI.

With the stroke of a Sharpie on day one, Trump signed an executive order called “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” setting off a domino effect in government agencies, corporations, and schools. Unelected right-hand man and billionaire Elon Musk has taken a chainsaw to government agencies, forcing the resignations of thousands of federal workers. Many of these workers have little to no connection to DEI programming—these firings have included workers across government agencies, from workers at the Environmental Protection Agency to workers at VA hospitals. 

Education Department workers are being put on leave for attending diversity trainings. The Trump administration launched an “End DEI” portal for parents to report teachers for teaching “critical theory, rogue sex education and divisive ideologies” (i.e. racial history and gender studies). 

Corporations like Walmart, Amazon, Meta, McDonald’s, Ford, and Target have scrapped or cut back their DEI programs. Some have eagerly picked up what Trump wants implemented instead—MEI (Merit, Excellence, and Intelligence).

CEOs everywhere are rejoicing over these changes. In an interview with the Financial Times, one top banker expressed, “I feel liberated… we can say [offensive expletives] without the fear of getting cancelled.” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said on Joe Rogan’s podcast that large companies have become “culturally neutered” and need more “masculine energy.”

The “MAGA-fication” we are seeing in the US corporate world is clearly much larger than DEI initiatives. The reality is, Trump is using DEI as a dog whistle for anything and everything related to queer people and minorities, and bulldozing anything that may get in the way of making the rich man richer.

Okay… But What Is DEI Really?

What DEI is and isn’t depends on who you ask. To Trump, DEI is “anti-white”, “divisive” and promotes “radicalism.” To corporate America, it includes compulsory bias trainings and board diversity quotas. To some young Latino students, it’s why they are able to receive scholarship money to afford to attend university.

DEI initiatives have been around for decades as an attempt to address discrimination in the workplace and school. DEI took center stage in the aftermath of the George Floyd rebellion in 2020, where over 20 million ordinary people in the U.S. took to the streets to fight against racist police violence. Despite Democrat-led cities promising to defund or even disband their police departments, these “promises”, as expected, went unfulfilled (and in most cases, those same Democrats turned around and bloated their police budgets instead). 

The ruling class, to a degree, was forced to recognize that systemic racism exists. But the only widespread concession they were willing to offer up was more DEI initiatives, which they used to redirect the conversation around racism towards interpersonal relations and individual change rather than address its systemic roots in capitalist exploitation.

It wasn’t long until the bosses figured out how to make DEI profitable. In the three years following the brutal murder of George Floyd, DEI job listings increased by 123%. One 2020 estimate placed the size of the global diversity and inclusion market at $7.5 billion. DEI workplace trainings boomed despite previous research showing that they had little or even negative impact in the workplace. This new brand of “woke capitalism” let the bosses off the hook—instead of actually addressing racism and sexism in the workplace, they could check off the “diversity” box and carry on making profits. 

As examples, having a “girlboss” doesn’t equal more rights for women in the workplace, and “Glamazon” doesn’t decrease the exploitation of queer Amazon workers. Oppression such as racism and sexism is rooted in class society itself, and so our battles must be fought along class lines. Ultimately, the bosses, regardless of gender or race, make their profits off the exploitation of their workers. To actually address oppression in the workplace, we need the working class in the driver’s seat.

That being said, Trump’s attack on DEI threatens far more than just boss-initiated programs. Facing threats under DEI executive orders are Title XI and anti-harassment protections, the Veterans Employment Initiative, disability protections, breastfeeding stations for mothers, school funding and scholarship programs, after-school clubs, identity-based programs, and the right to teach about the history of slavery in the US, to name just a few examples.

The anti-DEI attacks are part of a wider right-wing backlash against basic democratic rights gained from mass movements in the 60s and 70s. Trump looks to chip away at policies like the 1964 Civil Rights Act, defund schools, and scrap social services by scapegoating DEI programs, immigrants, and trans people. Doing so serves as a gateway for wider attacks on the working class to push forth his right-wing, anti-worker agenda. This agenda is part of Trump’s plan of reasserting a national identity and traditional values in the U.S. to prepare for increasing inter-imperialist conflict with China.

Defend Against Attacks On The Oppressed

Two things are true: the DEI takedown represents a much larger attack on the oppressed and working class, and at the same time, DEI is not enough to address racism, sexism, transphobia, etc. In fact, DEI programs, like bias trainings, point away from the systemic nature of oppression, and instead put the onus on the individual to change. While under pressure from society, the bosses may be willing to make moves towards addressing oppression, but the logic of capitalism means that any progressive gains made by the working class will be distorted or destroyed by the ruling class to serve their own interests. 

As socialists, we fight tooth and nail against all attacks on the oppressed, and understand that only a socialist strategy that takes aim at the ruling class can win what working people need. We need a multi-gender, multi-racial mass movement to fight attacks on divide-and-rule tactics and democratic rights, including unions willing to strike against the bosses. 

Unions have historically played a role in winning more democratic rights for working people and addressing discrimination in the workplace. Union pay scales based on seniority eliminate gender and racial pay gaps for the same positions. The biggest gain for oppressed workers would be to expand the labor movement and bring millions more into the unions.

A strong union contract is the best way to fight discrimination, by ensuring that pay is transparent, but it’s not the only thing that’s needed. Unions also need to play a role in building the kind of genuine solidarity needed to fight all attacks on the oppressed, and combat racism and sexism within their ranks. This means we need unions that advocate for anti-discrimination in the workplace and wider society, and that explain how the bosses use discrimination to divide workers.

The faculty union at UC linking up with university students across Ohio against SB1 is a step in the right direction, but more is needed. As history shows, gains won by mass movements are always at risk of being snatched away under capitalism. This tug of war between the classes will continue unless we successfully pull the ruling class over the line and off its feet. This will take unity within the working class that goes against the divisions Trump and the billionaires try to sow, and a revolutionary leadership that takes the defensive struggle onto the offensive. Only the struggle for a socialist transformation of society can eradicate all oppression for good.