Jan. 25, 2024

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

Trump Bans DEI In The Federal Government—And Everywhere Else As States And Corporations Are Next

By Robert Romano

President Donald Trump is concluding his first week in office for his historic second term and has not wasted any time at all with issuing executive orders under federal law declaring national border and energy emergencies, ending censorship and the weaponization of the federal government and even declassifying any and all documents to do with the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Sr. and Martin Luther King, Jr.

But one that stands out were a trio of executive orders abolishing all legally dubious diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and offices in the entire federal government and eliminating all racial and gender preferences in hiring and promotion in the federal government and opting for a merit-based system in federal hiring, consistent with the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and the Civil Rights Act that abolished racial, sexual and religious preferences and quotas.

And it’s not just the federal government that will have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act — so will everyone else. In the order entitled, “Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” Trump also announced his intention to enforce federal civil rights laws on states including schools and universities and on private employers as specifically required under Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act.

For states, Trump is immediately focused on enforcing race and gender-neutral admissions at colleges and universities to bring into effect the 2023 Supreme Court ruling Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College that found affirmative action admissions policies to violate the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act: “the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall jointly issue guidance to all State and local educational agencies that receive Federal funds, as well as all institutions of higher education that receive Federal grants or participate in the Federal student loan assistance program under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1070 et seq., regarding the measures and practices required to comply with Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).”

And the order outlines that the administration will enforce federal civil rights laws against DEI programs by private employers: “the Attorney General, within 120 days of this order, in consultation with the heads of relevant agencies and in coordination with the Director of OMB, shall submit a report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy containing recommendations for enforcing Federal civil-rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.”

Taken together, these effectively ban DEI nationwide. Although to be fair, racial and gender preferences in any direction already violate federal civil rights laws, it’s just that for decades a series of executive actions and court precedents have sought to allow them for minorities who were historically discriminated against and even those who were not.

Diversity hiring quotas like these might appear to run afoul of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on employment discrimination on the basis of race or sex: “It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer… to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or … to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

However, thanks to the 1979 ruling by the Supreme Court ruling Steelworkers v. Weber which ruled that employment policies that racial preferences on the basis of race and sex in favor of women and minorities, which plaintiffs argued was reverse discrimination, were not a violation of the Civil Rights Act, in effect legalizing employment discrimination against whites and males. This was a sharp departure from more racially neutral interpretations of the Civil Rights Act by federal courts that preceded the decision.

Then Associate Justice William Rehnquist, who would go on to become the Court’s 16th Chief Justice in 1986, in his dissenting opinion, compared the Court’s rewriting of the Civil Rights Act to the totalitarian regime portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984, writing that law was written plainly, “Taken in its normal meaning, and as understood by all Members of Congress who spoke to the issue during the legislative debates, this language prohibits a covered employer from considering race when making an employment decision, whether the race be black or white.”

Rehnquist blasted the majority of the court, adding, “the Court behaves much like the Orwellian speaker earlier described, as if it had been handed a note indicating that Title VII would lead to a result unacceptable to the Court if interpreted here as it was in our prior decisions. … Now we are told that the legislative history of Title VII shows that employers are free to discriminate on the basis of race: an employer may, in the Court’s words, ‘trammel the interests of the white employees’ in favor of black employees in order to eliminate ‘racial imbalance.’… Our earlier interpretations of Title VII, like the banners and posters decorating the square in Oceania, were all wrong.”

But in light of the 2023 ruling on college admissions, if racial preferences in college admissions are unconstitutional under 14th Amendment equal protection, then so are those by corporations today via their “diversity, equity and inclusion” racial and gender hiring quotas, one of the cornerstones of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment model that seeks not profit, per se, but through ownership of companies to impose certain social agendas.

Today, the question of reverse discrimination posed by ESG’s DEI corporate policies might be decided differently by today’s Supreme Court more than 40 years later. 

And now, thanks to the plan outlined by Trump, those court cases are almost certainly going to headed to federal courts as the order includes identifying egregious cases of discrimination and pursuing litigation as necessary: “The report shall contain a proposed strategic enforcement plan identifying: (i) Key sectors of concern within each agency’s jurisdiction; (ii) The most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners in each sector of concern; (iii) A plan of specific steps or measures to deter DEI programs or principles (whether specifically denominated ‘DEI’ or otherwise) that constitute illegal discrimination or preferences. As a part of this plan, each agency shall identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars; (iv) Other strategies to encourage the private sector to end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences and comply with all Federal civil-rights laws; (v) Litigation that would be potentially appropriate for Federal lawsuits, intervention, or statements of interest; and (vi) Potential regulatory action and sub-regulatory guidance.”

On the final note of “[p]otential regulatory action and sub-regulatory guidance” there is also assuredly work to be done as well including under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by the Barack Obama Labor Department in 2015 allowing Environmental, Social and Governance investments — including DEI programs — into tax-deferred, employer-based retirement savings accounts like the $6.3 trillion 401(k) market and other defined benefit and defined contribution plans totaling $11.9 trillion. 

A 2020 regulation by the Trump Labor Department watered this regulation down a bit, mirroring a 2008 regulation by the George W. Bush Labor Department, but was promptly overturned via a May 2021 executive order by President Joe Biden defining climate change a financial risk under ERISA and affirmed later via a 2022 regulation by the Biden Labor Department. The 2008 regulation was actually a revision of a 1994 regulation by the Bill Clinton Labor Department, which in turn were revisions to the rules made by prior administrations.

These attempts to hold back ESG depend on fiduciary rules, that state as long as investments remain profitable commensurate with other non-ESG investments, then environmental, social and other factors may be taken into consideration when making economically targeted investments.

All of these rules are based on the fiduciary duties and obligations defined under federal law in 29 U.S.C. Section 1104, which states, “a fiduciary shall discharge his duties with respect to a plan solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries and… for the exclusive purpose of … providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries; and … defraying reasonable expenses of administering the plan; … with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence under the circumstances then prevailing that a prudent man acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use in the conduct of an enterprise of a like character and with like aims; … by diversifying the investments of the plan so as to minimize the risk of large losses, unless under the circumstances it is clearly prudent not to do so; and … in accordance with the documents and instruments governing the plan insofar as such documents and instruments are consistent with the provisions of this subchapter and subchapter III.” 

But like the 2008 Bush Labor Department regulation — and every other rulemaking on this subject in fact — the 2020 Trump Labor Department once again affirmed the “all things being equal” test. None have dared to overturn that via a rulemaking.

The 2020 rulemaking stated, “Under the final rule, plan fiduciaries, when making decisions on investments and investment courses of action, must focus solely on the plan’s financial risks and returns and keep the interests of plan participants and beneficiaries in their plan benefits paramount. The fundamental principle is that an ERISA fiduciary’s evaluation of plan investments must be focused solely on economic considerations that have a material effect on the risk and return of an investment based on appropriate investment horizons, consistent with the plan’s funding policy and investment policy objectives. The corollary principle is that ERISA fiduciaries must never sacrifice investment returns, take on additional investment risk, or pay higher fees to promote non-pecuniary benefits or goals.”

So far, so good, but then the Trump Labor Department, like every single Labor Department before it, affirmed ESG investments would continue to be allowed by fiduciaries: “The final rule recognizes that there are instances where one or more environmental, social, or governance factors will present an economic business risk or opportunity that corporate officers, directors, and qualified investment professionals would appropriately treat as material economic considerations under generally accepted investment theories.”

Under that rubric, in theory DEI programs at private corporations could continue as long as the companies were profitable and generated adequate returns for investors. So could slavery for that matter, but slavery is unconstitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment and so is racial discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment, so now, in principle when the Labor Department looks at the ESG rule again, under the Trump anti-DEI executive order, it will have to take into consideration whether retirement investments can be made to companies that are clearly violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

In short, Trump has declared war on DEI. And it will not go lightly. There will be fights every step of the way, including in federal court, just as segregation had to be fought in decades past until finally, the Supreme Court does its job and in the words of Marbury v. Madison (1803) “say[s] what the law is”. This is a sea change.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government. 

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/01/trump-bans-dei-in-the-federal-government-and-everywhere-else-as-states-and-corporations-are-next/

Trump is Right to Call Out Biden Chip Deal

By Richard Manning

President Donald Trump is right to be skeptical about former President Joe Biden's chip subsidy provided to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) to build chips here in America.

I say this as someone who has a long history of standing with Taiwan, and against current trade relations which have disadvantaged the U.S. economy and workers in favor of the communist Chinese regime in Beijing.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation operates as a monopoly, dominating 64 percent of the chip manufacturing industry in the world. Meanwhile United States companies only produce about 10 percent of the world’s semiconductors and none of the most advanced chips.

At a time when tech drives the future and chips are critical components, the United States has zero capacity to survive a genuine trade war, where the fastest chipsets in the world come from Qualcomm, a U.S. company, but the manufacturing of these chips is completely dependent upon foreign entities, largely TSMC.

In fact, Bloomberg reports that, “Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is the world’s biggest chipmaker and the sole provider of Apple Inc. and Nvidia Corp.’s most prized chips.” So it should be no surprise that an analyst raised the possibility of antitrust concerns on a recent earnings call. It’s a worthy point and something the Trump administration should explore. 

It cannot be understated how precarious this position is. TSMC is Taiwan-based, an obvious vulnerability given Moaist China’s lust for destroying the heirs to the legitimate government of mainland China who thrive on a small island off the coast. To survive, TSMC has close ties to Beijing, and Beijing invests in TSMC’s success.

During his first term, President Trump rightfully cut the legs off of Beijing’s attempt to insert Huawei technology into most of the critical manufactured goods sold around the world, denying the Chinese People’s Liberation Army the ability to use backdoor shut off switches to hack critical infrastructure around the world. Yet, TSMC technology has been found in Huawei chips, once again demonstrating this dangerous partnership.

President Trump’s ire has been drawn toward a multi-billion dollar U.S. taxpayer grant to TSMC to build a chip manufacturing plant in Arizona – a plant that has been slow-walked and which the soon-to-be President is skeptical will ever meet its initial promise.

It has been clear since President Trump threw his hat in the ring for the presidency in 2015 that he is a deal maker with a strong opinion that many of the trade deals our government enters into don’t serve the best interests of the people. His spidey-senses are all over the Biden-TSMC grant to build chips in America and the dangers associated with the world’s dependence upon one, easily and potentially already compromised company’s chip manufacturing dominance.

In a world where the manufacturing and supply chain for Nvidia chips, for example, which are used in a significant amount of the world’s Artificial Intelligence processors, is critical for the survival of a first world economy, it is dangerous to have that capacity exist in a single company whose headquarters is closer to China, than Cuba is to Florida. 

Several billion U.S. tax dollars are scheduled to be spent on encouraging chip manufacturing here in America. Sending a significant amount of that money to a business with a monopoly rather than building up home-grown chip manufacturers in many ways defeats the mid and long-term national security purposes of on-shoring high-end chip production.

For the world’s security, it should be hoped that a full-fledged war with China can be avoided.  But in a world where communist Chinese hacks of critical infrastructure, including the U.S. Department of Treasury, are reported almost weekly, spending billions to help Google-Microsoft-Amazon chip manufacturing that have direct ties to the mainland Chinese government to build a manufacturing plant in Arizona feels like the equivalent of paying the fox to build a nest in the henhouse.

Among the many priorities that President Trump has for his new administration, he will need to once again get his arms around the reality of our cyber and hardware (semiconductor chips) vulnerabilities. Calling out the slow-motion Biden-TSMC chip making deal for special examination as well as TSMC’s monopoly position are important steps in this overall assessment.

Richard Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government. 

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/01/trump-is-right-to-call-out-biden-chip-deal/

Americans are Pushing Back Against the Radical Abortion Agenda – Including Young People  

By Manzanita Miller 

While the radical left likes to circulate a narrative that a majority of women, and a majority of young Americans, support their radical abortion-on-demand agenda, the reality is the public consciousness is shifting against abortion. 

A new poll from the Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement conducted by YouGov and Survey USA finds that millennial and Gen Z voters – who now account for almost half of all eligible voters in the United States – oppose taxpayer funding of abortion and support restrictions to protect the unborn.   

A poll looking at Americans of all age groups from the Knights of Columbus and Marist, finds that 67 percent of Americans call for restrictions, at minimum, on abortion. 

This news comes as pro-life advocacy groups mobilize, with plans to call on the Trump Administration and his Department of Government Efficiency to strip Planned Parenthood of its nearly $700 million dollars in taxpayer funds annually. 

While the radical left ran one of the most pro-abortion tickets in history – Former Vice President Harris and Minnesota Gov. Walz – young people moved toward Trump. Biden won voters under 30 by 24 percentage points in 2024, but Harris won them by only eleven, a thirteen-point shift away from Democrats. Among voters under age 44, Harris won the group by only seven points after Biden won them by fourteen points four years ago.

Women also shifted away from Democrats in 2024. While Biden won women by fifteen points in 2020, Harris won them by just eight, a seven-point shift toward Trump. 

Data shows that the economy was one of the driving factors for young people supporting Trump over Harris, but the radical left’s plan to use abortion as leverage over young people and women largely failed.  

By and large, young Americans oppose the radical left’s grotesque, abortion-on-demand agenda. According to the survey from the Demetree Institute, 67 percent of young Americans support some form of restrictions on abortion – and this number is up two percentage points from last year. 

The poll shows 31 percent of young Americans would be willing to support more restrictions on abortion than we currently have if families were given support – which a multitude of pregnancy centers across the country already provide.     

Only nine percent of young Americans support the radical left’s abortion-without-limits agenda, according to the poll. 

The poll also found a sane response to the question of when human rights should begin – with only two percent of young people saying human rights begin “when a court says so”, while the majority – 60 percent – say human rights begin before a child is born.     

While a majority of young people are not calling for a nationwide abortion ban, what they are showing is strong support for restricting the deadly procedure, which is much more in line with conservative objectives than it is with the radical left’s abortion-on-demand agenda.  

In the Democratic Party’s platform, written when Biden was the nominee, the party focuses on the vague term of “Reproductive Freedom”. The platform includes language that suggests the party is planning to expand abortion and beat back abortion restrictions that voters have passed at the state level since the fall of Roe. 

However, most Americans – and most young Americans – support restrictions on abortion at varying levels. This process is already happening at the state level, as citizens vote for restrictions to abortion including bans after a certain number of weeks. 

While the abortion debate is a highly politicized one, it appears that as scientific advancements humanize the preborn and Americans rethink what it means to stand for justice and human rights, young people are moving away from the left’s barbaric abortion-on-demand agenda.   

Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation. 

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/01/americans-are-pushing-back-against-the-radical-abortion-agenda-including-young-people/