“A new presidential order should target intersectionality practices explicitly”

“A new presidential order should target intersectionality practices explicitly”

Intersectionality has been an increasing focus of the Legal Insurrection Foundation and its Equal Protection Project. We joined with the Defense of Freedom Institute to issue a report in April 2026, Intersectionality – The Rise of a Dangerous Anti-American Ideology and How to Stop it , which is a launching pad for our broader initiative to make sure the American public and elected officials are aware of this danger.

Part of that effort includes a recent op-ed by Robert Eitel (President and co-founder of DFI) and me in The Washington Examiner, The root cause: DEI won’t disappear until this is stopped

For much of the past decade, the diversity, equity, and inclusion movement has held education in America hostage. The Left has used this ideology to justify countless absurdities in U.S. schools, including telling four-year-olds that this country is racist, allowing boys in girls’ sports, and firing teachers based on race, regardless of performance or seniority.

When President Donald Trump took office for the second time, he issued two executive orders, one ending merit-based workforce balancing and another regarding radical indoctrination, to eradicate DEI practices from taxpayer-funded programs and activities.

These executive orders sent shockwaves through the U.S.’s school districts and colleges. No longer could taxpayer-funded universities maintain DEI practices that discriminated based on the race of their students and faculty. The administration now requires these institutions to follow the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that the Federal Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ban racial preferences in college admissions.

Indeed, in recent weeks, the Justice Department has moved to address racial discrimination against Asian and white people in the admissions process at numerous medical schools, including at Yale, universities of California, Los Angeles, and San Diego, Stanford, and Ohio State. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon declared, “This department will continue to shed light on these illegal practices, and demand that institutions of higher education comply with federal law.”

To keep federal dollars flowing, universities and school districts must now drop DEI from their business practices.

That is, at least on paper. Although the executive orders have had a significant impact, they have not eliminated DEI because schools have simply rebranded, concealed, and masked their DEI efforts.

It’s true that some fell in line. The College Fix found that 78 shuttered their DEI offices for good. Ninety-nine surveyed institutions, however, simply slapped new names on their DEI offices. For instance, Harvard just renamed its DEI office the “Office for Community and Campus Life,” and Cornell’s former “Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives” is now the “Office of Academic Discovery and Impact.”

But the problem with these offices was never the sign on their front doors: it was the illegal discrimination that so often occurred within them.

The elite schools that incubated and propagated DEI are unwilling to give up the fight. They are biding their time, hoping after the 2028 election a new administration will be amenable to their DEI discrimination.

The fact that many institutions did not even bother pretending to stop their discriminatory DEI practices underscores our concerns. The Defense of Freedom Institute recently partnered with the Legal Insurrection Foundation and its Equal Protection Project to uncover unlawful discrimination that persists. Our report found 20 New England institutions of higher education participated in a fellowship program that specifically barred white and Asian applicants. On the opposite coast, 138 institutions within the University of California system have DACA programs that discriminate against American citizens in favor of illegal immigrants.

This is because intersectionality, the ideology that underpins DEI, is still alive and well. A new presidential order should target intersectionality practices explicitly.

Intersectionality is the idea that a person’s worthiness for opportunities such as college admissions, jobs, and grant funding is found at the intersection of his or her group identities. The more real or even imagined oppression a person can claim, the more deserving that person is.

At its core, intersectionality holds that Western civilization is inherently and permanently oppressive, and because it is oppressive, it must be dismantled by any means necessary. Someone who belongs to a racial minority or other “traditionally oppressed” group ranks highly in this intersectional worldview. White men rank last.

Any system that views people based on their race, color, or national origin necessarily ignores their knowledge, skills, abilities, attitude, creativity, and work ethic. Intersectionality and meritocracy cannot coexist; indeed, intersectionality intentionally undermines merit.

This is not just an academic concern. Public sector bureaucrats have embedded intersectionality into government programs. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services still has three Biden-era grant programs for future counselors and social workers that explicitly ban white applicants.

Even more concerning is that this ideology tolerates domestic terrorism, animating radical groups like the Turtle Island Liberation Front, whose members were recently indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for planning to bomb multiple sites in California and target ICE agents. This radical group believes the United States is illegitimate and that violence is thus a moral imperative.

Fully eradicating intersectionality requires more action from the administration. With public opinion turning rapidly against DEI and its offshoots, Trump should issue a new executive order directing federal agencies to remove intersectionality from federal grants, contracts, and employment practices.

As our report proposes, a new executive order including intersectionality in the DEI practices barred by prior executive orders would go a long way toward squeezing racial discrimination out of the federal government, schools, colleges, and universities.

Eliminating intersectionality will require much more than changing the names of what were formerly DEI offices. Creating lasting change requires tearing DEI out by the roots, and those roots are found in intersectionality theory

Reminder: we are a small organization going up against powerful and wealthy government and private institutions devoted to DEI discrimination. Donations are greatly needed and appreciated.

Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.