[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 15 (Friday, January 24, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S347-S348]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Trump Administration

  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, it has been 4 days. It seems like it has 
been longer than that, but it has been 4 days since President Trump 
took the oath of office as the 47th President of the United States. We 
have seen a flurry of activity since that time, which you would expect 
from President Trump. He has been waiting for that day for some time 
now and has worked really hard to get there. But from securing our 
borders to securing protections for women in sports, it is abundantly 
clear that President Trump is not letting any dust gather under his 
feet.
  I am particularly pleased to see him dismantling the Biden-Harris 
administration's DEI regime throughout the Federal Government. Some 
people may be asking: Well, why would the President waste his time on 
that? What could be wrong with having a diverse workforce?
  Well, the truth is that, while DEI--or diversity, equity, and 
inclusion--may sound like a benign or a nice thing, the dystopian 
reality is that there is nothing inclusive about DEI programming. On 
the contrary, it is quite divisive. In practice, DEI initiatives do the 
exact opposite of what they purport to do, and they fly directly in the 
face of everything that America stands for.

  On Monday of this week, we celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 
birthday. In what was perhaps Dr. King's most famous speech, the ``I 
Have a Dream'' speech, he said:

       I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a 
     nation where they will not be judged by the color of their 
     skin but [rather] by the content of their character.

  To me, that is the ideal.
  At the heart of the civil rights movement was a desire for everyone, 
regardless of race or gender, to compete on a level, merit-based 
playing field.
  What is so misguided about these DEI initiatives is that they do the 
exact opposite of what Martin Luther King spoke about. Instead of 
judging people on the content of their character, the DEI regime would 
have us assign points to people based on characteristics like skin 
color and gender and give preferential treatment to people on that 
basis. These are immutable characteristics, not something any of us can 
control. So it is profoundly unfair to decide that one person in a job 
candidate pool gets more weight put on their application because of 
something that was an accident of their birth. I think most people, if 
they understand what DEI is all about, would agree that this amounts to 
an unfair hiring practice. It treats people differently based on gender 
or the color of their skin or some other immutable characteristic.
  President Trump's Executive order does not just affect Federal 
hiring; it also directs Agencies and Department heads to eliminate DEI 
practices in grants and contracts as well.
  I think this would be a great opportunity for the Department of 
Government Efficiency to take a look at it as well, as there is a lot 
of room to eliminate waste and inefficiency in Federal grants and 
contracts.
  According to the Government Accounting Office--GAO--the Federal 
Government spent $759 billion on Federal contracts in 2023, which 
represents roughly 12.5 percent of Federal Government spending for that 
fiscal year. A significant number of these contracts are for the 
Department of Defense. With billions of dollars and our national 
security on the line, it is critical that these contracts are awarded 
to contractors on merit, not based on some DEI-centered criteria. We 
owe it to the taxpayers to be selecting the best and the brightest and 
the most effective people for a job, not picking the consulting firm 
that simply racked up the most DEI points.
  One of the downstream effects of DEI requirements in Federal 
contracts is they create an incentive structure for these divisive 
practices to bleed into the corporate world. This goes all the way back 
to then-President Richard Nixon, who implemented affirmative action 
requirements for private companies that contract with the Federal 
Government.
  Since that time, there have even been instances of companies 
committing outright fraud in order to qualify for contracts that were 
prioritized for minority-owned businesses by claiming that an employee 
is a 51-percent owner in order to qualify for minority-owned status and 
thus get preferential treatment.
  Now, some of the folks in the media not surprisingly are framing this 
action by President Trump as a reversal of the progress we have made in 
America in the civil rights era, but nothing could be further from the 
truth.
  What we have to keep in mind is that the reforms of the civil rights 
era were enacted to address particular problems that our Nation was 
going through at that time; namely, segregation and widespread racial 
discrimination. Of course, these practices of racial discrimination 
that were so widespread during that time were far from our finest 
moments as a nation. I am thankful--thankful--that our country has been 
able to move forward from that era, and I applaud the men and women who 
went to great lengths and risked everything to help us turn the page on 
that chapter as a country.
  But today, with rights granted to everybody, regardless of race, 
color, or creed, by law, we have a different situation where the law 
and the policies that were intended to end racial discrimination have 
evolved into the modern DEI apparatus, creating a new kind of 
discrimination--something we sought to avoid but which has now crept 
back into our country.
  So the policies that were enacted to address one problem back during 
the civil rights era have been turned on their head--not to accomplish 
their original purpose but to do something entirely different, which is 
to enact preferences based on race, gender, and other immutable 
characteristics.
  In fact, while the Civil Rights Act was being debated right here on 
the Senate floor, one of its architects, Senator Humphrey, expressed 
direct opposition to what is now part of the DEI bureaucracy. He said:

       If the Senator can find in Title VII any language which 
     provides that an employer

[[Page S348]]

     will have to hire on the basis of percentage or quota related 
     to color, race, religion, or national origin, I will start 
     eating the pages one after another, because it is not there.

  So I think it is fair to say that President Trump's actions earlier 
this week are not a reversal of the progress we have made since the 
civil rights movement. They are better understood as the righting of 
the ship back to what Congress and the Nation intended to accomplish: a 
nation where all people have a chance to succeed or fail based on their 
merit and not on race.
  So this action by President Trump, rather than reversing progress, is 
a return to the ideal that the United States of America should have 
always stood for but unfortunately did not, which is the equal dignity 
and equal treatment of every American under the law. That is our goal, 
and I am glad to see that President Trump has returned us to that 
original ideal since the civil rights era rather than to somehow paper 
over this effort to treat people differently based on their race, 
gender, or other characteristics.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Barrasso). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.