CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey is leading a coalition of 19 states asking Congressional leadership to reject two Democrat-sponsored bills that would codify diversity, equity and inclusion – commonly known as DEI – into law.
“We should focus on the things that unite us, not on the things that divide us; DEI fosters discrimination,” Morrisey wrote in the April 16 letter asking lawmakers “to recommit to building an all-inclusive system of government built on merit and fairness — not inappropriate balance-shifting policies, targets, and preferences.”
Morrisey says the two bills — the Federal Government Equity Improvement Act and the Equity in Agency Planning Act — are in line with President Joe Biden’s executive order pushing DEI policies for federal agencies.
“By excluding some and preferring others, DEI also threatens to shrink talent pools, bidder pools, and beneficiary pools — driving costs up for the government, hurting productivity, and limiting the reach and success of government programs,” the coalition wrote. “The only thing that can be reasonably expected to grow is the bureaucracy associated with implementing these laws.”
The letter was addressed to James Comer (R-Kentucky), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, and Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
“Behind the legalese, it’s clear enough what these bills would really do: write into law troubling forms of discrimination,” Morrisey wrote in the letter. “They would codify some of ‘today’s faddish social theories,’ which ‘embrace [a] distinction’ between race, gender and other characteristics. The bills assume that the government should approach persons first by drawing judgments about their facial characteristics, not from the individuals that they really are.
“Yet our Constitution does not make these distinctions. Quite the opposite: our Constitution recognizes that ‘[e]liminating racial discrimination’ — and all other forms of pernicious discrimination, really — ‘means eliminating all of it,’ even when implemented for purportedly beneficial ends. ‘[A]ll … persons’ enjoy the ‘broad and benign provisions’ of our Constitution’s equal-protection provisions. So a ‘public authority’ cannot apply a law — even one that might seem ‘fair on its face’ — in a way that will discriminate ‘between persons in similar circumstances.’”
But Morrisey says those who fight for these bills “seem to have forgotten all of that.”
“It should be obvious that tracking targeted demographics of persons engaged with the federal government and then using that data to favor some persons over others is the very definition of discrimination,” Morrisey wrote. “It harkens back to the sort of quotas and other exclusionary policies that have been deemed discriminatory for decades, including morally repugnant laws of an earlier time. No wonder so many of our states have affirmatively outlawed these policies in the public and private spheres. Yet bills march ahead in Congress anyway.”
In the letter, Morrisey ponders the effects of the bills.
“And to what end?” he asks. “Many negative consequences would follow from so readily embracing DEI. Persons are reduced to single-trait caricatures of themselves. People so categorized will surely suffer reduced morale or satisfaction. By excluding some and preferring others, DEI also threatens to shrink talent pools, bidder pools and beneficiary pools — driving costs up for the government, hurting productivity and limiting the reach and success of government programs.
“The only thing that can be reasonably expected to grow is the bureaucracy associated with implementing these laws. And when the government gives its official imprimatur to divisive policies, it virtually ensures that the very sort of conflict, animosity and resentment that these kinds of laws are supposed to fix will instead only worsen.”
Last month, Morrisey also wrote the FBI a letter questioning the Bureau’s DEI policy on recruitment, hiring and promotions and suggesting they present issues that may violate the nation’s non-discrimination laws.
Joining Morrisey’s letter to Congress were the AGs from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Utah.