Yes, so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion is on life support. President Trump’s executive orders have driven a stake through the heart of DEI programs in the federal government, and his agencies are steadily bringing universities, states, and cities to heel.
But woke policymakers are not giving up. A new tool is emerging to steer benefits and spending toward favored racial groups in the name of “equity.” The new tool is geography.
Consider this: Hales Corners is a small village in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. Since 1968, the Milwaukee County Parks Department has run a large, deep-water pool in Hales Corners. It’s been a fixture of the community. But the pool now needs some $600,000 in repairs.
In a recent “Aquatics Study,” instead of fixing the Hales Corners pool, the Parks Department recommended permanently closing it. Why? The reason is simple: Too many white people live in Hales Corners. About 90 percent of Hales Corners is white, meaning that principles of “equity” require deprioritization of the pool repairs. “Equity is a central consideration,” according to the department. “Consideration should be both user equity needs as well as equitable aquatic offerings,” whatever that means.
Buried deep within the report and beyond all the “equity” gobbledygook, the Parks Department revealed the true metric of decision-making: the “Equity Index.” This is a mathematical formula that ranks every park in Milwaukee County. A significant part of the calculation is the racial makeup of the surrounding area, so parks in black neighborhoods score higher than parks in white neighborhoods.
Like other white areas, the Hales Corners pool scored poorly, ranking 128th among 153 total parks in Milwaukee County. It only had an “Equity Index” score of 3 out of 10, meaning principles of racial equity demand that the park be deprioritized because of the village’s whiteness.
But this isn’t just some local problem with bureaucrats pushing DEI. A recent investigation by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) found that Milwaukee County’s “Equity Index” is mostly based on a tool promoted by the Trump administration. The tool is called the “Social Vulnerability Index,” or SVI, run by the Centers for Disease Control. The index measures a certain geographic area’s “vulnerability,” and according to the SVI, having more nonwhite residents makes the area more “vulnerable.”
The CDC’s tool is used across America by Democrat-run cities and states. Connecticut ranks drinking-water projects based on the SVI. California uses the SVI to decide which communities will receive disaster-assistance grants. Arizona employs SVI to decide where to award health-related grants. Cook County, Illinois, prioritizes broadband grants to “communities with the highest [SVI]” in the state. And if you live in a white neighborhood in Boston, good luck getting your sidewalk fixed: Boston prioritizes the city’s safety spending based on each locale’s SVI score.
These are just a few examples of the widespread use of the CDC’s SVI, which allows DEI redlining — the practice of prioritizing certain neighborhoods over others based on race, but hiding the practice behind geographic line-drawing.
All of this is screamingly illegal. Using proxies for race, such as geography, is race discrimination. Attempting to balance spending or benefits based on race is race discrimination. Relying on racial stereotypes, such as “all blacks are vulnerable,” is race discrimination. And using race as a “negative” against one group, or a “positive” for another group, is race discrimination. Cities, counties, and states are bound by the U.S. Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thus, race discrimination is illegal and unconstitutional regardless of “equitable” motives.
Nevertheless, it is surprising that the Trump administration promotes the SVI, effectively supporting DEI redlining around the country. As WILL recently pointed out in a letter to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who heads the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, the solution is simple: delete the use of race from the SVI. It is a small but necessary step to ensure that states and local governments are not using discriminatory DEI principles to fix parks, potholes, and community swimming pools.
The Trump administration must take this matter seriously and fix it quickly. If it does nothing, it risks a lawsuit from the right. It wouldn’t be the first: WILL has five pending lawsuits against the Trump administration for race-based policies. Other conservative legal groups have also not hesitated to sue the administration. And the states, counties, and cities also risk legal action if they persist in distributing dollars based on a certain neighborhood’s racial composition.
The Constitution demands that all benefits and services be provided on a race-neutral basis, and perpetuating harmful DEI continues to divide Americans on racial lines. The Trump administration should do the right thing and encourage colorblind policies.
Dan Lennington is the managing vice president and deputy counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty. He is also a former federal prosecutor who enforced federal immigration laws.
