Why Do Conservatives Hate DEI?

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs have become ubiquitous across higher education, government, and the private sector. Yet since 2020, U.S. conservatives have waged an energetic campaign to curtail or abolish them. The resistance is not merely reactive; it rests on long‑standing philosophical commitments to individualism, colorblindness, and meritocracy that conflict with policies perceived to privilege group identity. Those ideas, first weaponized against affirmative action in the 1980s, now animate state laws, litigation, and executive orders targeting DEI. This article traces that intellectual lineage and shows how it has translated into concrete policy after 2020.

Historical Roots

Ronald Reagan’s Second Term

The effort to dilute affirmative‑action rules for federal contractors signaled a conservative embrace of official colorblindness and a rejection of group preferences (Mark, 2024). In the 1990s, campus fights over “political correctness” broadened the critique: conservatives cast multicultural curricula and speech codes as threats to free inquiry and merit. California’s 1996 Proposition 209—barring state affirmative‑action programs—foreshadowed today’s statutory bans on DEI.

Core Ideological Commitments

Classical liberal individualism

Classical liberalism originated in the Enlightenment, drawing on thinkers such as John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and later F. A. Hayek. It holds that individuals, not groups, are the basic unit of moral and political analysis. People possess natural rights to life, liberty, and property that exist prior to government; legitimate law must protect these rights rather than create them. From this premise flows individualism: because rights adhere to persons, justice requires that rules apply uniformly to every citizen. The Declaration of Independence expresses this idea in the statement that “all men are created equal,” a phrase conservatives treat as a binding directive for race-neutral governance.

In legal discourse the position is often called colorblindness, meaning that public authority should neither privilege nor penalize anyone because of race. Colorblindness contrasts with contemporary arguments for equity, which seek proportional outcomes across demographic groups. Classical liberals contend that equity’s group focus conflicts with the individual right to be evaluated by personal merit alone. This reasoning shapes conservative readings of the Equal Protection Clause: any policy that assigns benefits or burdens according to race must survive the strictest judicial scrutiny because it departs from a neutral baseline.

Donald Trump’s 2020 “Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping” illustrates how these ideas inform modern policy. The order quoted Martin Luther King Jr.’s aspiration that people be judged by character, not color, and asserted that trainings describing the United States as irredeemably racist undermine national unity. By prohibiting federal agencies and contractors from promoting concepts that depict racial or sexual groups as inherently oppressive, the order aimed to restore what its authors saw as the proper, colorblind role of government. To conservatives schooled in classical liberal individualism, any program that conditions opportunity on group identity violates both moral equality and the meritocratic norm that advancement should rest on individual effort.

Colorblindness

In American constitutional discourse, colorblindness refers to the principle that government and public institutions should ignore race when making decisions. The idea traces its lineage to Justice John Marshall Harlan’s dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which asserted that the Constitution “is color-blind.” That phrase resurfaced in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and later appeared prominently in Chief Justice John Roberts’s plurality opinion in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 (2007). Roberts wrote that “the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” a formulation now cited as a succinct statement of the colorblind view.

Colorblindness embodies what legal theorists call formal equality: every individual is entitled to identical treatment under neutral laws, irrespective of group identity. Proponents see it as the logical extension of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, arguing that any state action that takes account of race—whether to harm or to help—risks perpetuating racial thinking. They maintain that the civil-rights statutes of the 1960s aimed to eliminate not only hostile discrimination but also the practice of categorizing citizens by race.

Critics of DEI initiatives apply this logic to argue that contemporary diversity programs revive racial classifications the civil-rights movement sought to abolish. When universities set race-specific enrollment targets or employers give preference to underrepresented groups, colorblind advocates contend that such measures treat individuals as members of a group rather than as autonomous persons. They also invoke strict-scrutiny doctrine, under which any policy that differentiates by race must serve a compelling state interest and be narrowly tailored, a standard rarely met in their view.

Opponents of colorblindness respond that ignoring race in a context of enduring inequality entrenches existing hierarchies, but colorblind theorists counter that race-conscious remedies entrench hierarchy by institutionalizing differential treatment. The debate therefore hinges on whether justice is best served by acknowledging racial categories to correct disparities or by refusing to employ those categories at all.

Anti‑collectivism

Collectivism refers to social and political theories that treat groups—not individuals—as the primary units of analysis and moral concern. In Marxist thought, for example, classes rather than persons are the chief agents of history (Marx & Engels, 1848/1976). Classical liberals have long resisted this premise, arguing that group-based governance erodes personal liberty. Friedrich Hayek warned that collectivist planning subordinates the individual to “arbitrary power” (Hayek, 1944), while Ayn Rand decried any system that “sacrifices the individual to the collective” (Rand, 1957). This intellectual lineage produced a modern conservative reflex to view state policy through an anti-collectivist lens: laws should protect individual rights, not engineer social outcomes for categories such as class or race.

Contemporary conservatives apply this framework to identity politics, a term that describes movements that organize political claims around demographic identities like race, gender, or sexuality (Fukuyama, 2018). They argue that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and critical race theory (CRT) both elevate group identity over individual merit by sorting Americans into “oppressor” and “oppressed” strata (Heritage Foundation, 2020). CRT scholars define racism as a structural condition embedded in institutions (Delgado & Stefancic, 2017). Anti-collectivists counter that such analyses collectivize moral responsibility, assigning blame or victimhood based on birth rather than personal conduct.

In policy debates, this stance manifests as opposition to mandatory bias trainings, racial affinity groups, and quota-like hiring goals. Critics contend that these practices resemble the collectivist redistribution once aimed at economic classes, now transposed onto racial categories. They invoke the Equal Protection Clause to insist that legal rights belong to individuals, so any remedy that privileges one group over another violates constitutional neutrality. Supporters of DEI reply that group-conscious measures are necessary to remedy systemic disparities, but anti-collectivists maintain that the cure risks entrenching a new form of categorical hierarchy. The dispute therefore centers on whether justice is better pursued by addressing structural group harms or by reaffirming the primacy of individual agency.

Meritocracy

Meritocracy is the belief that social and economic rewards should flow to individuals based on talent, effort, and achievement rather than inherited status or demographic identity. British sociologist Michael Young coined the term in The Rise of the Meritocracy (1958), a satirical warning that a society fixated on IQ and accomplishment might create new hierarchies. Nevertheless, the idea took hold in the United States as a positive ideal, reinforced by the nineteenth-century civil-service reforms that replaced patronage with competitive examinations and by the post-World War II expansion of standardized testing as a gatekeeper for college admission (Goldthorpe, 2016). Classical liberal thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek argued that a market order naturally channels rewards to those who create the most value, making meritocracy both efficient and just (Hayek, 1944).

Modern conservatives invoke meritocracy to critique Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. They contend that any hiring or admissions policy giving weight to race, gender, or similar categories substitutes group preference for individual qualification. This view animated the February 2023 memo from Governor Greg Abbott’s office, which instructed Texas state agencies and universities that considering DEI criteria “violates … hiring on merit” (McGee, 2023). Abbott’s staff argued that public employment decisions must be colorblind and solely performance-based, otherwise they risk infringing Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

The same logic underpins recent litigation claiming “reverse discrimination.” Advocacy groups like America First Legal have filed Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints against corporations that set numerical diversity targets, alleging that such programs disadvantage white or male applicants (Mark, 2024). Plaintiffs in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard framed their challenge to race-conscious admissions around the assertion that merit, measured by grades and test scores, should be the sole criterion (SFFA, 2023). Critics of meritocracy respond that standardized metrics often embed historical privilege, but supporters counter that replacing them with identity-based preferences undermines fairness and erodes public trust in institutions. The debate, therefore, turns on competing definitions of fairness: equal opportunity for individuals versus proportional representation for groups.

Contemporary Backlash: 2020 – 2025

Federal Action

In September 2020, the White House ordered agencies and contractors to cancel trainings discussing systemic racism or white privilege (Executive Office of the President, 2020). Although President Biden rescinded the order on his first day in office, it provided a template for states.

State-Level Legislation Targeting DEI (2021 – 2025)

Florida. In 2022 the legislature adopted the “Stop WOKE Act” (HB 7), limiting how K-12 schools, colleges, and private employers may discuss systemic racism. DeSantis expanded that effort in May 2023 by signing SB 266, which bars public colleges from using state or federal funds for DEI programming, requires the abolition of diversity offices, and mandates that general-education courses exclude theories of “systemic” inequity. Universities have since closed cultural and LGBTQ centers and reassigned staff to comply with the funding ban.

Texas. Senate Bill 17, enacted in June 2023 and effective 1 January 2024, orders every public university to shut down DEI offices, forbids “diversity statements” in hiring, and bans mandatory training that references race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Systems reported closing more than thirty-five offices and eliminating over 350 jobs; UT-Austin alone terminated about sixty DEI positions.

Utah. HB 261 (“Equal Opportunity Initiatives,” 2024) prohibits state colleges and agencies from maintaining any office, program, or training that makes decisions “based on personal identity characteristics.” It also outlaws the use of the terms “diversity,” “equity,” or “inclusion” in official initiatives. When the law took effect on 1 July 2024, institutions closed resource centers serving Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and LGBTQ students.

South Dakota. HB 1012 (2022) bans the teaching of “critical race theory” at public universities and forbids mandatory diversity training that portrays any group as inherently oppressive. Governor Kristi Noem framed the law as protecting free thought on campus; faculty groups warned of a chilling effect on academic speech.

North Dakota. Lawmakers first barred CRT in K-12 with HB 1508 (2021). A 2023 follow-up extended the prohibition to public colleges, outlawing mandatory training on “divisive concepts” and banning DEI hiring statements across the higher-education system.

Idaho. HB 377 (2021) withholds state funds from any public school or university that requires students to “affirm, adopt, or adhere to” teachings that one group is responsible for historic oppression. Critics note the statute’s vague language has encouraged institutional self-censorship around race and gender.

Oklahoma. HB 1775 (2021) forbids K-12 and higher-ed institutions from teaching eight specified “divisive concepts” about race and sex or from requiring diversity training that endorses them. Regulations implementing the law tie district accreditation to compliance; a 2024 federal injunction has partially blocked its enforcement in colleges while litigation proceeds.

Tennessee. Public Chapter 818 (2022), the “Divisive Concepts Act,” bars public colleges from compelling agreement with or penalizing rejection of fourteen listed concepts related to privilege or systemic racism. A 2023 amendment expanded the ban to mandatory employee training and requires biennial “viewpoint-diversity” climate surveys. MTSU

Arkansas. On her first day in office (January 2023) Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued Executive Order 23-05 prohibiting “indoctrination” via CRT in state schools. The 2024 LEARNS Act (Section 16) codified similar language, barring curricula that compel acceptance of ideas seen as violating the Civil Rights Act. A federal court enjoined that section in 2024; the state is appealing.

West Virginia. The Republican legislature has twice advanced the “Anti-Racism Act.” SB 498 (2022) and its 2023 successor SB 130 bar K-12 and public colleges from requiring students or employees to affirm concepts that one race or sex is inherently oppressive. Institutions must establish complaint procedures and file annual violation reports with lawmakers.

North Carolina. In April 2024 the UNC System Board of Governors repealed the system-wide DEI mandate, dissolved required diversity offices, and instructed campuses to eliminate diversity statements in hiring. The new policy replaces DEI language with a duty to “ensure equality of opportunity” and threatens budget cuts for non-compliance.

Indiana. SB 202 (2024) conditions faculty tenure reviews on promoting “intellectual diversity,” prohibits diversity statements in hiring, and empowers trustees to discipline professors who “substantially endorse” DEI ideology in class. Opponents argue the measure politicizes academic governance.

Kansas. HB 2105 (2024) bans public colleges from requiring applicants, students, or employees to state support for any ideology, “including a statement regarding DEI.” Violations can trigger a civil penalty of $10,000 per incident and state-funded investigations by the Board of Regents.

Litigation and Corporate Pressure

Conservative activists now file Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaints asserting that diversity targets discriminate against white or male employees. America First Legal’s 2024 lawsuit against IBM exemplifies this strategy, and federal judges have begun allowing such reverse‑bias claims to proceed.

Consequences and Outlook

University diversity offices are closing (Helmore, 2024); public‑sector trainings are dropping references to race; corporations are quietly rewriting scholarship criteria to survive legal scrutiny (Mark et al., 2024). Supporters call this a restoration of equal treatment; critics call it a gag order on truthful discussion of inequality. The clash pits two incompatible interpretations of the Fourteenth Amendment: procedural colorblindness versus substantive inclusion. With Republicans extending their 2024 electoral gains, anti‑DEI initiatives will likely expand. However, court challenges—such as an Eleventh‑Circuit rebuke of Florida’s workplace‑training ban—show that First‑Amendment limits remain (Roberts, 2007).

Conclusion

Conservative hostility to DEI is not a fleeting culture‑war outburst; it is a coherent application of classical liberal ideas that prioritize individual rights and distrust group remedies. Recognizing that pedigree helps explain why progressives view fairness-enhancing measures strike many conservatives as fairness‑violating. The policy battle will continue, but the philosophical divide—colorblind equality versus equity‑oriented intervention—runs far deeper than the latest “anti‑woke” headline.

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File Created:  04/23/2025

Last Modified:  04/23/2025

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