Is the pushback on DEI About Merit or Payback?

As I watch the erasure of African American history unfold, I take it personally because I know my own family’s legacy is at risk. My family is documented in the Florida archives for several significant achievements. A U.S. Post Office bears the name of a family member, and the building of my cousin’s medical practice—now a national landmark—receives annual funding for its upkeep. He was the first Black radiologist in South Florida. His brother, whose law practice operated in the same building, played a crucial role in integrating multiple establishments and schools in Florida, ultimately becoming the state’s first Black judge. And, in 1918, my ancestor was one of the country’s first civil rights activists.

The backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and the related executive orders have prompted companies, organizations, and government agencies to reevaluate hiring and promotion policies under the guise of ensuring they are “merit-based.” Unsurprisingly, most have found that their policies were already based on merit. That’s because true DEI has always been about ensuring that women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people with disabilities are not subjected to discrimination in the workplace. It fosters a sense of inclusion and belonging. So, when no violations of merit-based practices are found, yet the goal remains to dismantle DEI, what comes next? Apparently, the answer is to whitewash history—purging it from curriculums, websites, and public records.

So far, Donald Trump’s DEI rollback has resulted in the following:
 • The removal of historical content about the Tuskegee Airmen, the African American pursuit squadron that flew over 1,500 combat missions and earned three Distinguished Unit Citations.
 • The erasure of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), a group of civilian women pilots who flew critical missions during World War II, including ferrying aircraft and towing targets.
 • The deletion of videos and at least three pages of Black history content from the U.S. Army website.
 • The removal of Black History Month photos from the Department of Defense’s visual distribution website.
 • The deletion of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers story about Hattie Scott Peterson, the first African American woman civil engineer in the Corps.
 • The removal of a U.S. Army webpage detailing the timeline of LGBTQ+ acceptance in the armed forces.
 • The deletion of links on Arlington National Cemetery’s website that documented the contributions of Black, Hispanic, and female veterans.
 • The Pentagon erasing references to Richmond’s Leigh Street Armory, the nation’s oldest Black militia armory.
 • The elimination of DEI offices, programs, and content across all national museums.
•  This month the Trump administration eliminated the segregation clause. The federal government no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms and drinking fountains.

 The alteration of historical records, such as removing references to Colin Powell’s African American identity—though Madeleine Albright’s status as the first female Secretary of State remains untouched. How long before Condoleezza Rice’s history is rewritten? Will they attempt to erase Barack Obama’s Black identity? Kamala Harris’s status as the first woman, Black, and Asian American vice president? Where does it stop?

The goal is to demonize DEI, which is ironic because the words diversity, equity, and inclusion are words that represent the aspiration of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights (but when first written, these documents did not include women and people of color).

This is not the first time history has been rewritten to fit a whitewashed narrative. After the Civil War, several Black Americans were elected to local and state governments. In 1870, Hiram Revels became the first Black U.S. senator, and Joseph Rainey was elected to the House of Representatives. However, when Jim Crow laws took hold in the late 19th century, Black officials were systematically removed from office. The United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) then embarked on a decades-long campaign to reshape history. They funded Confederate flags on state buildings, erected monuments to Confederate soldiers across the South, and rewrote history textbooks to frame the Civil War as the “War of Northern Aggression,” emphasizing states’ rights over slavery. These revisionist history books were taught in Southern and Western schools until the late 1980s, shaping the beliefs of many leaders in power today.

So when politicians today claim they want a “return to accurate history that doesn’t make people feel bad” or invoke “Make America Great Again,” they are calling for a return to the very narrative the UDC created. Through textbooks, scholarships, and library funds, they sought to instill pride in white Southern heritage while erasing the political, social, and cultural advancements of Black Americans. In short, they wanted white school children taught they were better than everyone else. This is systemic racism at its finest.

I witnessed this revisionist history firsthand. When I moved from California to Virginia in the 10th grade, I noticed stark differences in my textbooks. I wrote about these disparities and won a national essay contest and scholarship—an achievement that made my father, a historian, incredibly proud.

The summer of 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, saw a reckoning. Confederate flags were taken down from government buildings, and statues honoring Confederate leaders were removed. Now, in 2025, we are experiencing the backlash—the “Big Payback.” The policies being rolled out align perfectly with Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s playbook for reshaping America, just as it did in the conservative resurgence of the 1980s. This is why we are witnessing the erasure of minority contributions to American history—because, to those in power, these contributions do not matter….and the people who hold the histories dear do not matter either. 

And yet, amidst all of this, I have yet to see calls to remove St. Patrick’s Day celebrations (or the removal of European or Russian immigrants) This month, on St Patrick’s Day, I put on my favorite green dress, enjoyed a traditional Irish meal in our office cafeteria, and celebrated alongside colleagues of all backgrounds. It was a fun and inclusive day—something DEI was meant to foster for everyone. But inclusion, it seems, is only acceptable when it fits a certain narrative.