Conservative commentator Tomi Lahren laid down some hard truths for the right about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in various institutions.
The term has played a prominent role in national discussions on race and culture – especially when it comes to hiring and training employees in the private and public sectors.
But those who are rightly concerned about the problems with DEI are making a massive mistake when they immediately jump to the conclusion that disasters like the plane/helicopter crash in Washington, D.C., are somehow caused by DEI.
During a recent broadcast, Lahren noted that “The left got DEI drunk in 2020” and that “after the death of George Floyd, the sudden cure-all for racism became open and blatant discrimination against White people and especially White men.”
The commentator further noted that “Skin color, pronouns in the oppression totem pole became the new bar for hiring, firing, and everything else.”
She added: “It was stupid then, and it’s still stupid now.”
However, “The right now also runs the risk of overplaying our hands when it comes to DEI, or rather the absolute obsessions with it,” Lahren argued.
This became abundantly obvious to me in the aftermath of the horrific and tragic Blackhawk and plane collision over the Potomac. Dozens of people are dead. We need to know what caused the horrible error to occur and make sure it doesn't happen again. However, the number of folks, particularly on X, who immediately started to claim it had to be DEI, that was too much. Then, with zero facts or evidence, started putting out there that one of the Black Hawk pilots was trans to the extent that the actual trans person they tried to blame it on had to come out and make a video about it.
This is true. Folks on social media had pinned the crash on a trans-identified woman who was not even on either aircraft.
“Come on, you all. What the hell? X is great, but some of you all are doing too much posting fake and dumb crap just to get attention and farm ad revenue,” Lahren continued. “Take a beat to get the facts before you grift for the sake of the grift.”
To make matters worse, when the actual female Blackhawk pilot, her name was released, some of these same folks immediately claimed the crash had to be her fault because she was a woman. Really, if this is the social media right, I do not want to be a part of it. Eliminating DEI is not about eliminating diversity It's about prioritizing competency over diversity. But it feels like some who've claimed to be conservative have twisted that notion and are now just looking to blame anything and everything on diversity.
She concluded: “I'll tell you what, it doesn't help the cause at all. It's actually a giant distraction from the cause and will alienate folks that we just added to the tent.”
Not everything is DEI pic.twitter.com/zVMWain52n
— Tomi Lahren (@TomiLahren) February 4, 2025
Lahren is right. I have also observed that many prominent individuals on the right have begun throwing around the term “DEI” like the left uses the term “racism.” It seems that each time a negative incident happens, folks rush to social media to claim, without any evidence whatsoever, that it was caused by supposed DEI hires – particularly women and racial minorities. Sometimes, it seems as if these individuals don’t understand that disasters occurred long before DEI became a thing.
When the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore collapsed, people immediately claimed it resulted from DEI. Some even referred to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, a Black man, as a “DEI Mayor.”
Here’s the thing: Doing this does not hurt the left, nor does it move the needle in the fight against authoritarian progressive views on diversity. It only hurts the effort to oppose them. It discredits those making reasonable criticisms about DEI.
Moreover, it also appears that any time a woman or racial minority achieves a position of prominence – especially when they are not conservatives, they are being labeled as “DEI hires” despite their qualifications. It happened during the California wildfires when some on the right claimed, again without evidence that DEI initiatives were the cause of the failure to stop the spread of the inferno.
The truth is that the problem with DEI isn’t that it elevates unqualified people into positions they cannot perform. The problem is that DEI has been used to divide Americans in various institutions. The authoritarian left has leveraged the desire for diversity in a way that pits us against one another.
A brilliant study from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) found that DEI narratives promote hostility and division in different settings. Researchers noted that in hypothetical scenarios in which no evidence of discrimination or bigotry existed, those who were exposed to antiracist and anti-Islamophobic DEI materials were far more likely to perceive bias and support action against those who supposedly exhibited bias.
These findings mirror those of our other DEI studies, where participants exposed to anti-racist narratives or to ostensible anti-Islamophobia narratives perceived more injustices (when there was no evidence of injustice) than did those exposed to a neutral scenario.
In fact, participants who were exposed to antiracist content were 21 percent more likely to see discrimination where it did not exist and 26 percent more likely to believe harm was caused. Even further, 35 percent were more likely to perceive microaggressions and 12 percent more likely to support punishing the individual involved. Also, they were 12 percent more likely to support mandatory DEI training.
This is no surprise, is it? When you inculcate people with the notion that everything is racist/sexist/homophobic/blah blah blah, this is what happens.
There is a clear difference between valuing people of diverse backgrounds and fostering positive relationships between them and indoctrinating people in a way that foments resentment and animus.
This is what we should be fighting. DEI has become a psyop aimed at pitting Black against White, men against women, straight against LGBTQ, and so on. A divided populace is much easier to control, is it not? While we are at each other’s throats, the powers that be can continue expanding government and amassing power at our expense without resistance. Let’s stop falling for it.