Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally Saturday in Las Vegas. — AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson
Shortly after Vice President Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president, Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump and others in the GOP began referring to Harris as a “DEI hire.”
Some Republicans are weaponizing the term DEI, a reference to the diversity, equity and inclusion initiative, to question Harris’s qualifications for president, suggesting that she is unfairly benefiting from her race and gender.
If elected in November, Harris would become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to win the White House.
The practice of DEI has been around for decades. DEI was created because marginalized communities were historically denied equal opportunities for jobs and were denied a sense of belonging in majority white corporate settings and campuses.
Public awareness of the term grew after the multiracial global protest over the 2020 police murder of George Floyd. The Floyd protests sparked a national reckoning on race relations, and many companies responded by investing in their DEI initiatives.
Four years later, DEI has come under attack in boardrooms, college campuses and state legislatures across the country.
Republican legislators across the country have proposed about 50 bills in 20 state legislatures that would restrict DEI initiatives or require their public disclosure, according to an Associated Press analysis.
Some companies such as John Deere and Tractor Supply have bowed to bullying and abandoned DEI policies.
The backlash against DEI programs has increased since the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action practices in June 2023.
DEI has become a racist code for the hiring and promotion of an unqualified African American or woman.
“Intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel,” Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman said in a TV interview about Harris. “I think she was a DEI hire. And I think that that’s what we’re seeing and I just don’t think that they have anybody else.”
The “DEI hire” attacks on Harris are an effort to diminish her accomplishments and make voters question her qualifications.
DEI has been politicized to deny Harris’s long list of accomplishments. A graduate of Howard University and the University of California Hastings College of Law, after gaining her law degree, Harris worked as a deputy district attorney from 1990-98, where she prosecuted cases of gang violence, drug trafficking and sexual abuse.
Harris first entered public office in 2004 when she was elected district attorney of San Francisco. In 2010, she was elected attorney general of California where she oversaw the largest state justice department in the country. She served in the U.S. Senate from 2017 to 2021.
Harris had to earn the trust of millions of voters of different racial and ethnic groups in California, the nation’s largest state, who evidently saw her as qualified.
As vice president, Harris has set a new record for the most tie-breaking votes cast by a vice president in history, including casting the decisive vote to secure passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the largest government investment in tackling the climate crisis.
Rising steadily through the ranks from local, state to national office, Harris served for 20 years in public office before seeking the presidency.
By comparison, Trump, a self-promoting businessman who has filed for bankruptcy six times, never held public office before being elected president in 2016. His pick for vice president, the 39-year-old Ohio Sen. JD Vance, never held public office before being elected to the U.S. Senate last year.
It would be fair for Trump and his Republican allies to criticize Harris on her record and policies, but the “DEI hire” attack is rooted in racism and sexism.
Reprinted from The Philadelphia Tribune
About Post Author
