SANDOVAL: Trump Just Fired A Deadly Shot At DEI — And The Legacy Media Is Totally Ignoring It

Show of hands: who’d prefer his surgeon earn his degree by merit, not affirmative action? Oh, everyone? 

President Donald Trump just took a sledgehammer to a load-bearing legislative pillar of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) with a new executive order. The order, signed April 23, requires federal policy to “eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts to the maximum degree.”

.@POTUS signs an executive order eliminating the use of the woke so-called “disparate-impact liability” to ensure equal treatment under the law. pic.twitter.com/rFJw0LYsrW

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) April 23, 2025

Disparate impact is born of civil rights legislation outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin — a standard which may appear innocuous. But why should one assume these protected characteristics are irrelevant to job performance? 

Consider firefighting. Is a five-foot, ninety-pound woman just as qualified for the job as a taller, stronger man? Even a decidedly larger woman, like Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) Assistant Chief Kristine Larson, should be suspect. Particularly when she responds to reasonable objections about her strength and capacity with a sneer.

“‘Is she strong enough to do this’ or ‘You couldn’t carry my husband out of a fire.’ Which, my response is, he got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire,” Larson fired back at hypothetical critics. 

LAFD Assistant Chief Kristine Larson:

“Am I able to carry your husband out of a fire? He got himself in the wrong place.” pic.twitter.com/BofTVr6dWP

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) January 9, 2025

Disparate impact goes beyond not discriminating on the basis of race or sex. It institutionalizes positive, i.e., active, discrimination. Disparate impact holds “any differences in outcomes in certain circumstances among different races, sexes, or similar groups” is evidence of unlawful discrimination, reads the executive order. “Even if there is no facially discriminatory policy or practice or discriminatory intent involved, and even if everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.” (RELATED: US Naval Academy Ditches Racial Preferences In Admissions Following Trump Order)

Individuals and businesses are more or less required to engage in positive discrimination in order to realize an artificial “racial balance” among employees. This, or face “potentially crippling legal liability,” according to the executive order. 

A hypothetical illustrates the anti-Constitutional absurdity of such a legal standard.

Imagine you’re putting together an orchestra. You only want the best musicians, so you decide to hold blind auditions to eliminate any possible influence of “unconscious bias” on the part of the selection committee. As it turns out, the majority of the first chairs are men of European descent. 

Disparate impact says your test is bunk. Better find a new one — a race and gender conscious one — that yields a perfectly diverse orchestra: a quarter Asian, a quarter Latino, a quarter lesbian, a quarter men without arms or legs who had all their teeth knocked out in an industrial accident. 

The executive order’s logic is simple and unimpeachable. The Constitution guarantees equal treatment under the law. Disparate-impact liability perverts this guarantee; Disparate-impact liability must die. 

Trump’s action doesn’t repeal Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, under which disparate-impact liability is enshrined, but it does render it comatose. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) can still accept disparate impact charges filed by employees, but can now decline to investigate them. It is unlikely the EEOC will file new litigation based on disparate impact, and pending litigation may be dismissed. Private and state litigation based on the disparate-impact liability can continue. 

The enormity of this step cannot be overstated. Critics of DEI have long called for the disparate-impact standard to be dissolved. This executive order is a crucial move towards dismantling DEI in sum and restoring meritocratic standards, a goal towards which Trump has been moving since his first day in office. (RELATED: Blue States Are Keeping DEI On Life Support)

One would think such an event would merit front-page coverage from DEI’s fiercest advocate: the legacy media. It doesn’t appear to interest them. The New York Times spent just a sentence on the executive order, buried amid an article describing another order related to college accreditors. The Associated Press, too, slipped the news several paragraphs deep into an article.

Maybe they’re bored. Or maybe, they’ve opted to close their eyes and put their hands over their ears: “If we can’t see it, it doesn’t exist. Right? Hopefully?”

Disparate impact is the perfect realization of leftism. Any disparity must stem from discrimination, because the alternative interpretation is too frightening to consider. The alternative accepts natural hierarchies. It accepts that two people may be equal in dignity, but not in ability. It accepts that, just like not everyone is good enough for the Olympics, not everyone is good enough to be a firefighter.

Follow Natalie Sandoval on X: @NatalieIrene03