Biden Signs Equity Executive Order Under the Radar Injecting Racism Across the Federal Government

Mondays are generally big news days, more than likely because newsrooms on the weekends are minimally staffed unless you happen to be one of the three big 24/7 news outlets. However, if you want to catch some good little nuggets of news, pay attention to late Friday afternoons. 

That’s when administrations and agencies tend to dump their ‘trash’ that they don’t necessarily want any news outlets to pick up on. That’s precisely what the Biden administration did right before the President’s Day long weekend. Still, lucky for you, dear reader, your friendly neighborhood spicy political commentator is a nerd and trolls Friday press releases.

So what did Sleepy Joe throw in the pre-weekend trash? An Executive Order that mandates the injection of equity into all aspects of the federal government, and trust me, you should care about this one.

President Biden signed the Executive Order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government on February 16th. This EO built on one of his first EOs when he took office that mandated the federal government to start planning for equity programs in their agencies.

This EO mandates more to include the development of Equity Teams in every federal agency that must administer, of course, equity training and equity in leadership across the entire federal workforce. Just what the federal government needs, more training and less work.

Additionally, each agency head must appoint a senior ranking official to lead the agency Equity Team because being a ‘leader’ in the federal government is really just about heading up nonsensical baseless teams versus actually leading any real change.

These Equity Team Leaders will collaborate with the agency’s Chief Diversity Officer, which will also work with the Environmental Justice Officer and the White House Gender Policy Council. The EO lists out over 20 agencies, so think about that for a second.

Within these over 20 agencies, there are currently Chief Diversity Officers, Environmental Justice Officers, and soon Equity Team Officers. You know, I can think of a few areas that we could cut in the federal government that might save some money.

The Point

So what exactly is the goal of these Equity Teams other than aggregating data and attending endless, pointless meetings? As the EO states, their charge from our Chief Executive is “Embedding Equity into Government-wide Processes.” 

Our federal government is instructed to go about injecting equity into all of its processes in numerous ways. One is to “review and update internal processes, directives, and government-wide guidance to support equitable decision-making, promote equitable deployment of financial and technical assistance…”

et’s think about that one for a spell. One agency that falls under this purview is the Administrator of the Small Business Administration.

One can’t help but wonder if some small business owners won’t get their federal loans approved based on the color of their skin. But, in contrast, others will get theirs approved for the same reason. That hardly seems very equitable.

But it gets worse, so much worse. The EO also directs agencies that “When designing, developing, acquiring, and using Artificial Intelligence” they are to ensure that it is “in a manner that advances equity.”

Not Quite Skynet, but Still Terrifying

Instructing federal agencies to ensure their AI algorithms operate under an equity lens will probably not mark the beginning of the T-1000, requiring me to begin my lifelong goal of training to be like Sarah Connor. However, this push will have massive repercussions for Americans regardless.

The American First Legal Foundation claims that this part of the EO encourages the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to alter its algorithms to audit more white and Asian taxpayers than black taxpayers. The specific part of the EO they point to states that these Equity Teams must “prevent and remedy discrimination, including by protecting the public from algorithmic discrimination.”

President Biden states, “Underserved communities often face significant barriers and legacy exclusions in engaging with agencies and providing input on federal policies and programs that affect them.” Notice the reference to “legacy exclusions” as a lover of language; I must say that is perhaps the most poetic way to repackage the concept of ‘systemic racism.’

However, the critical part of what the President says above is the concept of underserved communities. How we define an underserved community gets rather sticky and nebulous, which is precisely why it’s impossible to nail down.

Any demographic can be viewed as an underserved community at any given time, which is why definitions matter.

The Imbalance of Equity

The EO defines equity as “the fair treatment of individuals from all backgrounds including Black, Latino, Indigenous and Native American, Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, women and girls and LGBTQI+.” The left’s addiction to equity is a large part of why we have such a laughable government.

Equity is merely an offshoot of diversity, and the President has ridden this bandwagon his entire presidency. It’s why he hired our comically incompetent Secretary of Transportation and his unbearably inept Press Secretary.

It is why during the pandemic, he sought to impose racial and gender quotas for aid for small businesses and farmers. It wasn’t because he cared about minorities, its because he wanted to appear to care about minorities.

Equity is about equality in outcomes, not in opportunities. This failed concept attempts to say that we can all and should all have the same life outcomes as the next person, but it is merely a gateway drug into socialism. 

Life is unfair, and no amount of ‘forced fairness’ will make it more equitable. These Equity Teams won’t make the federal government more accessible; they will merely bog it down with more bureaucracy and racism than it already had before. 

Finally, the most crucial line in the EO states, “Starting with formulation of the Fiscal Year 2025 Budget” the Equity Teams are to articulate “how the President’s Budget can support the Equity Action Plans.” Yet another example of a taxpayer money pit meant to line the pockets of a bloated bureaucracy under the red herring of equity.

Original article: https://thepoliticalinsider.com/biden-signs-equity-executive-order-under-the-radar-injecting-racism-across-the-federal-g