Federal Contracting Is the Next DEI Target

Critics of diversity, equity and inclusion policies scored an important victory with last year’s Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, and a symbolic one with Claudine Gay’s resignation as Harvard’s president. But while some universities and businesses have pivoted from DEI to get in line with the high court’s ruling, Washington’s diversity-industrial complex marches on. It’s time for the federal government to play by the same antidiscrimination rules private companies have to follow.

Federal affirmative-action programs originated in the Nixon administration. In 1969 Labor Secretary George Shultz launched the Philadelphia Plan, which required companies bidding for federal construction projects in that city to commit to minority hiring goals. Within a year of announcing the plan, the administration extended it to cover all federal agencies. Fifty-five years later, those rules are still in place.