In a rush to complete the task before Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth visited the Naval Academy, officials removed items commemorating female Jewish graduates. Hegseth’s visit happened on April Fool’s Day, but this wasn’t a joke. The military has recently removed references to Black heroes like Colin Powell and Jackie Robinson from the Arlington Cemetery website and the Navajo Code Talkers from a Pentagon site, all in the name of erasing DEI. Robinson and the Code Talkers have since been restored after public outcry. Anti-DEI efforts have seen 381 books removed from the Naval Academy at Hegseth’s orders, including Maya Angelou’s autobiography and books on the Holocaust.
The impact isn’t limited to the military. Trump’s executive orders affect the entire government and the private sector. The White House released a fact sheet for an order ending the use of DEI in federal contracting and “directing federal agencies to relentlessly combat private sector discrimination.” The order directs the Office of Management and Budget “to streamline the federal contracting process to enhance speed and efficiency, reduce costs, and require Federal contractors and subcontractors to comply with our civil rights laws” and “bars the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs from pushing contractors to balance their workforce based on race, sex, gender identity, sexual preference, or religion,” according to the fact sheet. Heaven forbid contractors to have a balanced workforce.
Imagine what will happen when anti-DEI initiatives trickle down through the private sector, using the same criteria the government uses in removing departments, individuals, books, and training. Let’s look at several examples that logic dictates will soon come to pass.
COLLEGIATE SPORTS RECRUITING
Not too long ago, college sports were completely segregated. The 1954 Brown v. Board decision required integrating public schools, and Brown v. Board 2 gave them as long as they liked to implement it (with all deliberate speed). Even as colleges grudgingly accepted Black students, sports programs were very slow to allow Black players to integrate their teams. It took the University of Kentucky basketball program under Adolph Rupp losing to a Texas Western team with five Black starters and Bear Bryant’s University of Alabama football team getting whipped at home by a USC squad with Black players to open the floodgates. All-white teams weren’t good enough to win against teams with Black players.
HBCUs during segregation produced many of America’s best athletes. Olympic Champion Bob Hayes went to Florida A&M University (FAMU) before a lengthy career as a wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys. FAMU alone produced Andre Dawson of the Chicago Cubs, Wimbledom Champion Althea Gibson, and offensive lineman Nate Newton. Other great HBCU players include Super Bowl Champion Doug Williams from Grambling, Gold Medalist Wilma Rudolph of Tennessee State, Earl Monroe of Winston-Salem State, and Gold Medalist Edwin Moses of Morehouse. I attended Fisk University, whose quarterback my freshman year was J.J. (John) Jones, who later started several games for the New York Jets. That year, we played against John Stallworth from Alabama A&M. The NFL's #1 draft choice was Ed “Too Tall” Jones of Tennessee State.
When white schools needed to recruit Black players to improve their teams, they changed their recruiting practices to go where the Black players were. They started recruiting in inner cities, which they previously avoided, to get the types of players that could help them win. Look at Alabama’s football program today or Kentucky’s basketball program. Bear Bryant and Adolph Rupp would roll over in their graves. The University of Miami became “The U” by getting players like Michael Irvin and Bennie Blades from Fort Lauderdale and Alonzo Highsmith of Bartow. Schools got better by purposely going to Black neighborhoods and Black schools with outstanding talent, especially in the skill positions. Imagine a world where schools were forbidden from recruiting at these schools because Black athletes were targeted. How is that different from the military banning participation at an event highlighting Black engineers? How will those kids get opportunities if the military can’t go where the talent is? If Trump’s DEI initiatives take over college sports, every major college team will resemble the 1970 University of Alabama football team.
SUPERHERO MOVIES
Reversing DEI would radically change the Superhero movie genre of the last two decades. If the military's example were followed, most Black heroes, especially those portraying characters originally white in the comics, would be removed. Remaking such a massive body of work would prove challenging, so a “reverse-colorization” technology would be used to Make Superheroes White Again. People might be surprised that the comics did offer a Black version of Captain America (Sam Wilson), a Hispanic Spider-Man (Miles Morales), and a Black Green Lantern (John Stewart), along with Black Panther and Luke Cage. But you know, DOGE is coming for Idris Elba as the Norse god Heimdall and a Black Human Torch or Invisible Woman. The list of characters who have been race-swapped includes Perry White, Alicia Masters, Harvey Dent, Deadshot, Martian Manhunter, Jimmy Olsen, Catwoman, Kingpin, Hogun, Electro, Baron Mordo, Callisto, Valkyrie, and Jasper Sitwell, to name a few. DEI would have all these characters returned to white, and the populations of large cities like Metropolis and Manhattan would be almost all white, just like in the comics.
Tirhakah Love
TELEVISION NEWSCASTS
The day is coming when you only get cable news from non-DEI newscasters. FOX News is almost there, with all its hosts except Harris Faulkner, who hosts her show, Faulkner Focus, and co-hosts Outnumbered for the network. One can never say at FOX News, but her job seems safe as she hasn’t said anything to offend white people during her tenure. MSNBC isn’t committed to its news personalities of color, ask Tiffany Cross, Joy Reid, and Alex Wagner. They are quick to tell us that Lester Holt wasn’t fired, just focusing on Dateline, no doubt with a reduction in pay.
SCHOOL NAME CHANGES
There are far more schools named for prominent white people, some of them Klansman and white supremacists. There was an effort to change those, especially after the protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd and the video shown around the world. Those changes have reversed with some Virginia schools returning to their former names and Army bases like Fort Liberty returning to Fort Bragg. How long do you think it will be before Ron DeSantis notices that Bethune Cookman University is named in part after a Black woman, Mary McLeod Bethune? Will it become just Cookman University? Coppin State University was also named after a Vlack woman, that will never do. Several public schools were named after Booker T. Washington, who was considered less radical than many Black leaders. Schools named after him can probably keep their names, but Malcolm X Shabazz school will have to go.
Black History Month will dwindle back down to a week before disappearing altogether. Halls of Fame will eliminate all the inductees, preferably wealthy, who aren’t white males. Television commercials will only cast white actors, and most interracial love scenes on television and in movies will be eliminated. The exception will be those showing women of color being forced and dominated by white men. I didn’t say “rape” because any suggestion that white men have anything but consensual sex is not permissible.
The days when Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion were admirable goals are gone. We aren’t moving forward; we are going back to a time when those goals didn’t exist. We won’t be able to refer to the new age as the slave codes, Black codes, or Jim Crow as those terms will have been banned along with all the books describing them. How about we call it America?
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Jeremy Heligar's work on Medium.