Op-Ed: Biden’s policies designed to ensure ‘equity’ will only further marginalize underserved communities

This article originally appeared in The Washington Times on March 21, 2023

Elevating equity over equality not only undermines fundamental American principles but also boasts a track record of failure. The recent executive order from the Biden administration is just its latest misguided attempt to use the idea of “equity” to assist the American people.

President Biden recently signed an executive order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities in the Federal Government. This executive order expressly states that the federal government will use a “whole of government” approach to combat racial discrimination. In reality, this fancy language boils down to just another empty promise.

With this executive action, the White House is calling the elitist liberal constituency that is the coalition of federal government employees racist while indicting the very system that Mr. Biden helped to construct during his 50 years of government service. In other words, the need for redress and the removal of barriers wouldn’t be necessary if liberal elites hadn’t created this system in the first place. In fact, the majority of those employed by the federal government are liberal, and this has been the case for years.

If the Biden administration really wanted to help underserved communities, it would evaluate the data, realize that equity policy has never worked, and move to effect real change.

But this is the Biden administration’s second racial decree. The initial executive order by nearly the same name that Mr. Biden signed on his first day in office was reconstructed and reinstituted by adding the word “Further” to the name. Given the administration’s dedication to racializing America, we should understand what the administration is imposing upon the American people.

As glorified by the radical left, the perpetrators and creators of critical race theory, “equity” is when resources are shared based on what each person needs in order to reach an equal outcome. Conversely, equality means each individual or group is provided the same opportunities to succeed. It is not coincidental that equity closely resembles Karl Marx’s idiom “from each according to his ability, to each according to their needs.” More succinctly, equity empowers left-wing social planners with a greater ability to reallocate taxpayer dollars in the form of grant solicitations to leftist special interest groups that promise to deliver equal outcomes.

The executive order states, “Each agency head shall support ongoing implementation of a comprehensive equity strategy that uses the agency’s policy, budgetary, programmatic, service-delivery, procurement, data-collection processes, grantmaking, public engagement, research and evaluation, and regulatory functions to enable the agency’s mission and service delivery to yield equitable outcomes for all Americans, including underserved communities.”

This means every part of the federal government will be furthering the mission of “equal outcomes” over “equal opportunity.” We have seen this mentality from the left fail time and time again, often hurting the population it was supposedly intended to protect.

The net effect of this new presidential decree will result in the same outcomes that left-wing policies have produced for the previous 85 years. The liberal agenda will receive glowing media accolades for essentially laundering taxpayer dollars back to their own coffers by claiming to help the underserved and struggling African American families in our cities who will continue to suffer.

We have seen this time and again with policies from every facet of government.

Take, for example, failed housing policies such as rent control, which ultimately result in harm to the populations they are designed to protect. Another example of this failed ideology is the practice of race-norming in health care, which came into effect during the Carter administration and was banned in 1991. However, it is still harming the Black community today. In fact, in recent years, the practices of race norming were even used by the NFL and resulted in lower settlement allocations to Black players.

Of course, one of the most prevalent examples of the left’s extreme desire for equity policy is their constant pushback of school choice policies in the name of “equity.” Their baseless claims that school choice undermines equity are disproved by studies showing improved test scores and outcomes for Black children after school choice policies have been passed.

On top of the countless failed policies the left has passed to push “equity,” the practical implementation of this executive order is nonsensical. Are we really asking every federal agency to start making policies for the American people largely based on race? That is counter to the foundational ideals of this country and dismantles years of work from our great civil rights leaders. Let us not forget the words of Martin Luther King Jr. himself: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’”

Equity policy is a step back for America.

The Biden administration’s failure to put forth a productive solution for these communities reveals its true agenda, which is to make these communities increasingly reliant upon the government. The evidence is all here. Advancing policies under the guise of “equity” will only further marginalize underserved communities.

America is a country that cherishes equal opportunity for everyone — not equal outcomes.

Read op-ed in The Washington Times