Executive orders and administrative agency rules going back to the 1960s required businesses contracting with the U.S. Government to engage in “affirmative action.”

That was the euphemism of the day for racial discrimination. They couldn’t just call it “racial discrimination” because that term had, naturally and appropriately, developed a negative connotation. It suggested a world where people were judged not by the content of their character, but the color of their skin. 

Over the ensuing decades, that euphemism “affirmative action” developed a similar negative connotation. By favoring people with certain skin colors, “affirmative action,” just like “racial discrimination” before it, suggested a world where people were judged not by the content of their character, but the color of their skin.

And so, the euphemism “affirmative action” was retired in favor of a new euphemism, “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.” Capitalizing the words was evidently to make the term look grander.

Moreover, the capitalized words lent themselves to acronymizing into “DEI.” We thus doubly disguised “racial discrimination” with the use of an acronym for a euphemism.

But the double disguise was deliberately transparent. Everyone knew “DEI” meant “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,” which meant “affirmative action,” which meant “racial discrimination,” which meant that people were judged not on the content of their character, but on the color of their skin. 

These farcical theatrics reached their comedic conclusion with “President” Joe Biden, who promulgated Executive Orders, probably signed by autopen while he was mindlessly eating ice cream cones, requiring that companies doing business with the government submit written statements certifying their commitment to judging their employees by the color of their skin and not by the content of their character.

The requisite commitment to racial discrimination was not limited to government contractors. Practically everyone receiving federal money – and that’s practically everyone – had to show they were committed to racial discrimination. Schools receiving DOE money, cities receiving HUD money, states receiving DOT money, anybody getting any money from any government alphabet – hell, the whole world – had to show its DEI commitment.

But alas, DEI, like its predecessor euphemisms, had already taken on a negative connotation of being what it was – an acronym for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which was a euphemism for affirmative action, which was a euphemism for racial discrimination.

It was time for a new euphemism. Conveniently, a new President had just been elected.

But the new President did something no President had done in generations. He effectively said, “No more racial discrimination, regardless of what acronym or euphemism you choose to call it by.”

He said he was reversing the Executive Orders and abolishing the federal regulations that required companies, schools, cities and states to certify their commitment to racial discrimination.

He even said he would require the opposite from them – he would require them to certify that they do not engage in racial discrimination. And he has threatened to withhold federal money from them if they continue their racial discrimination.

In all of this, he appears to have the Supreme Court on his side. Chief Justice John Roberts declared in a case some years ago that:

“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

For that tautology, liberals of course called him a racist. But he and a majority of the Supreme Court finally followed through in a case two years ago outlawing racial discrimination at the liberal establishment’s headquarters, Harvard University.

Of course, some schools and companies will simply provide false certifications. They will certify that they don’t engage in racial discrimination, even as they continue to. People who employ acronyms and euphemisms to disguise their actions can be expected to similarly employ lies to conceal those same actions.

But this is a start. And to put teeth into it, the President has at his disposal an entire Department of Justice which appears newly devoted to real justice – not the social kind.