President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the 1964 Civil Rights Act as Martin Luther King, Jr., and others, look on, July 2, 1964. Photo: Cecil Stoughton, White House Press Office (WHPO), via Wikimedia Commons
As soon as President Donald Trump returned to the White House, he issued a host of executive orders to dismantle the federal government’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives. Trump’s actions shouldn’t have surprised anyone, since he pledged to eliminate DEI programs during his presidential campaign, but so much misinformation circulated on social media that PolitiFact, a fact-checking website, had to make corrections.
Several social media posts warned that Donald Trump revoked Lyndon B. Johnson’s Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1965, which prohibited discrimination in hiring based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
However, the fact-checker pointed out that there was no Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1965, and even if there was, an “act” refers to legislation passed by Congress, which cannot be overturned by a president’s executive order.
A president, on the other hand, can rescind an executive order issued by another president.
When Trump issued his executive order titled Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, he eliminated LBJ’s executive order 11246, which required federal contractors to “take affirmative action” to increase minority and women participation in the workforce.
Some Trump supporters who supported removing DEI initiatives questioned whether revoking LBJ’s executive order 11246 went too far. Was Trump throwing away the good with the bad?
To answer that question, we must first examine the philosophy underlying LBJ’s 1965 executive order 11246, which was issued after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had already prohibited employment discrimination.
LBJ claimed that African Americans were still “buried under a blanket of history and circumstance.” In other words, there was a negative legacy of slavery and racial segregation that put African Americans at the bottom of American society, and simply adopting the Civil Rights Act of 1964 will neither repair the damage nor curtail current prejudice and bigotry directed at African Americans. “It is not a lasting solution to lift just one corner of the blanket,” LBJ said. “We must stand on all sides, and we must raise the entire cover if we are to liberate our fellow citizens.”
LBJ’s historical assessment was undeniably accurate, but who was the “we” responsible for the liberation of African Americans?
LBJ believed the answer was White liberals in the Democratic Party through public policy. At a Howard University commencement, LBJ stated that equal opportunity was essential, but it was not enough. LBJ told the Black students he sought not just equality as a right but equality as a result.
LBJ’s executive order 11246 implemented “equality as a result.” In the US Supreme Court’s first affirmative action case, Justice Harry A. Blackmun went even further, explaining, “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.”
LBJ and Blackmun’s approach contradicted the philosophy of the Civil Rights Movement, whose fundamental objective was enshrined in the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ensured employees and applicants were treated without regard to their race, sex, creed, color, or national origin.
Trump is routinely ridiculed for lacking a political philosophy, but he revoked LBJ executive order 11246 because the Trump administration is philosophically opposed to “equality as a result.” Trump’s executive order, titled Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, is an attempt to revert back to the fundamental objectives
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