The Trump anti-DEI executive order kicked in yesterday. Every new federal contract over the micro-purchase threshold has to include a clause banning “racially discriminatory DEI activities” — language so vague it works as a loyalty test. Sign it or lose the work. The vagueness is the point. You can’t comply with a standard nobody will define, so you over-comply, sandblast your hiring page, and pray the auditors never ask.
Higher-ed diversity officers sued in Maryland on Monday saying the order eats the First Amendment. They’re right and it won’t save anyone on the clock that matters. Contractors with payroll to meet will sign whatever paragraph DC slides across the desk, then quietly purge anything race-conscious from the org chart. That’s the play. Get private companies to do the bigotry for you, then call it private-sector consensus when they fall in line.
The cruelty rides in on a procurement clause. A welder at a shipyard, a janitor in a federal building — both now working under a regime where hiring outside Stephen Miller’s family tree is a contract breach. Boring federal acquisition rules are how civil rights die in America. Boring is how it always works. Pay attention to the boring stuff.