Oregon's DEI suicide pact

The state's 2021 "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan" endangers Oregonians by prioritizing its mushy definition of "DEI" over protecting Oregonians from threats like LA fires

A roadmap to unconstitutional racial discrimination

I originally published this review of the State of Oregon’s defining Diversity, Equity and Inclusion document back in September. With Meta, parent company of Facebook and Instagram, dropping its DEI program last week, and discussions swirling around California’s Oregonesque preparation for, and response to, the Los Angeles fires, I thought it was worth sharing again. I made a few minor edits this time around.

The State of Oregon’s “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Action Plan: A Roadman to Racial Equity and Belonging” provides state employees with “diversity, equity and inclusion strategies to incorporate across all aspects of state government.” In truth, it is a plan to infuse each and every state decision and action with racial discrimination as that term is defined in the plan. State-sponsored racial discrimination is both unconstitutional and very bad for outcomes.

The DEI plan was issued in 2021 by the office of then-Governor Kate Brown, other state officials and, of course, consultants. In keeping with the genre, it is full of mind-bendingly ridiculous prose, calling on state employees to

“[i]nspire expansion of equity by sharing and collaborating to build on what is already happening[;]”

“[i]nfluence policy change to solve complex problems and improve service delivery[;]”

and, crucially, to

“[e]fficiently apply resources based on where data shows they are most needed and effective.”

No, I am not omitting context that would make any of those statements more profound.

The DEI plan urges state employees to employ the apparently novel concept of “targeted universalism” in their quest for equity. Targeted universalism, the plan explains, is the practice of “setting universal goals pursued by targeted processes to achieve those goals.” OK.

A reader who deploys sufficient targeted universalism to cut through the mess of words combined in a way to render them, in sum, a brain-numbing nullity, eventually gets to the crux of the DEI plan, as contained in the glossary. Yes, there is a glossary.

Equity, the universal goal urged by the plan, “is the effort to provide different levels of support based on an individual’s or group’s needs in order to achieve fairness in outcomes.” Lest one wonder what “support” means, the plan further informs us equity “requires the redistribution of resources, power, and opportunity to . . . communities . . . impacted by systemic oppression.”

Discrimination, for which the plan insists “there is no tolerance” is “the unequal treatment of members of various groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression, socioeconomic class, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, religion, citizenship status, a combination of those identified, and/or other categories.”

“Color-blind racial ideology,” which the plan chides the unenlightened for favoring, is “the belief that people should be regarded and treated as equally as possible, without regard to race or ethnicity.” Treating people of different races equally may seem like a good thing, but it is actually bad, we are told: “While a color-blind racial ideology may seem to be a pathway to achieve equity, in reality it ignores the manifestations of racist and discriminatory laws and policies which preserve the ongoing processes that maintain racial and ethnic stratification in social institutions.”

The DEI plan directs all state employees to “redistribute resources” to communities of color to achieve equity. Such redistribution is “the unequal treatment of races based on race,” and thus discriminatory according to the plan’s own definition of that word. The plan requires racial discrimination, but also says there can be no tolerance for discrimination.

In addition to being a logical and moral blight, the DEI plan is also a constitutional disaster. Because, even if Oregon disagrees, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires the State of Oregon to regard and treat people as equally as possible, without regard to race or ethnicity.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last year in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard University, wrote that a college runs afoul of the Equal Protection Clause when its admission policies confer benefits to some applicants based on the race of those applicants. Among the unfavored races, most impacted were Asians, 11% fewer of whom were admitted as a result of Harvard’s admissions policies.

The plain language of the Equal Protection Clause (“no state shall . . . deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”) and the holding in Students for Fairs Admissions demonstrate that, if tested, Oregon’s DEI plan is constitutional toast. It should be. It mandates serial violations of Oregonians’ constitutional rights.

The discriminatory core of the DEI plan animated the Oregon Cares program, which gave public Covid recovery funds only to black small business owners. The state had to settle the constitutional challenge to Oregon Cares and disband the program, and that was before the clarity provided in Students for Fair Admissions.

Any and all decisions made by state employees pursuant to the “roadmap” of the DEI plan will be similarly morally and constitutionally infirm. It makes unconstitutional racial discrimination, not providing essential and occasionally life-saving services to Oregonians, the foremost state value and requirement. It is an expression of universal discriminatory intent by the entire apparatus of state government. IIt should be revoked and expunged.

I reached out to Governor Tina Kotek’s spokesperson to find out if the Governor agrees with the DEI plan adopted by her predecessor. I received no response back in September and still have not.