The new Trump administration has a generational opportunity to expunge anti-merit identity politics that have infected and disabled so many American institutions and to bring back merit. So do governors and legislators in the states where Republicans won mandates in this election, too.
For nearly a century following the Pendleton Act of 1883, our federal government used difficult tests to help fill departments; competence was a non-partisan goal. In the 20th century, leaders agreed that we need bright talent to win wars, advance in science, and achieve feats such as the moon landing. By the 1970s, less than 10% of test takers scored high enough on government PACE exams to qualify for senior leadership.
Those tests died in the late 1970s. Because of racial disparities in the results, activist courts ruled that even if tests were predictive of job performance, they were illegal because of the “disparate impact.” Soon, the government was hiring people who would have failed these tests — less qualified people from all backgrounds. President Jimmy Carter’s 1979-80 Democratically-controlled Congress also made it harder to hold government workers accountable. Since then, the bureaucracy has become dumber and dumber.
Over the last decade, the stupidity accelerated: a focus on identity politics meant that merit was actually an anti-priority. As the Biden administration tried to preserve in amber various forms of racial handouts and discrimination, and its failing bureaucracy continued to regularly fritter away billions of dollars, Republicans slowly woke up to the rot.Â
A fight began in the states to confront some of these policies. Legal fights escalated, and in 2023, the Supreme Court reversed its previous rulings on affirmative action, marking the beginning of the end for the notion that “well-intentioned” racial discrimination is OK in America. It isn’t.Â
Yale and Princeton, admitting even fewer higher-scoring Asian-Americans this year versus last, may have illegally ignored this ruling; if so, with Trump’s victory, their time is coming.
Unfortunately, this rot still exists even in states that voted for Mr. Trump by ten (or 30) points. But a few bold leaders have begun paying attention. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has charged head-on at the “woke” elements of the state government, particularly in the universities.Â
At the state level, I’ve seen this fight up close as chairman of the Cicero Institute. Our team prepared draft legislation to stop coerced “loyalty oaths” to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology in public universities, and we won: multiple states have adopted versions of those laws. Gutting DEI loyalty oaths is a table-stakes reform for leaders who understand why America works (don’t count on it in blue states, though). But it’s a tiny start. Why not be bolder and fight for merit everywhere it’s under attack?Â
The identity politics form of left-wing politics is a virus that spreads itself, funding activists and ideology from whatever city or university department it infects. If we don’t capitalize on the mandate today, we may yet lose against the virus tomorrow.Â
HARRIS CAMPAIGN ENDORSEMENT MONEY IS ONE MORE OPPORTUNITY TO MOVE ON FROM IDENTITY POLITICS
The good news is that in January, this fight will be at the federal level. The Justice Department will no longer defend academic racial discrimination. The Congress will no longer attempt to appropriate money on a race-conscious basis. The cabinet appointees will no longer brag about their attention to DEI — and lack of attention to results. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy & Co. will fight for merit in D.C.
But conservative leaders should remember that these bad ideas aren’t going to peaceably go away. There’s a lot of money on the line for woke NGOs, universities, and those who otherwise benefit from government grift; and even red states are still funding woke departments, ideologically-captured colleges, hospitals, and unaccountable far-left nonprofits. Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Georgia: in these and other states we love, thousands of K-12 teachers get paid more by taking classes from radical-left “Departments of Education.” These colleges teach them how terrible our civilization is and how evil capitalism is; in each of these states, state schools have departments which unanimously support radical identity politics and pass on that view to students, paid for by tax dollars. That’s not academic freedom — it’s funding your enemies!
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This ideological virus won’t go away just because we won at the ballot box; if we continue to fund the radicals, the virus will merely hide, incubate, and spread itself anew at a future date. Instead of rewarding degrees at Woke-U, why not defund the radicals, and implement merit-based tests for teacher advancement?Â
Why not tie community college funding to students’ career success — such as average salaries a few years out — to incentivize what works and reward the great schools, but defund the woke-stupid alliance? Why not clean up every institution your state funds?
Boldly confronting identity politics and other neo-Marxist claptrap is a winning issue with voters. Even in my native California, when voters who vote for Democrats 60-40 are given the opportunity to weigh in on specific issues like affirmative action, they overwhelmingly support race neutrality and common sense.
Red state legislators and governors: the electorate is on our side. The law and courts are on our side. Administrators tied to woke institutions want you to be soft, but your duty to our civilization is calling.
Merit-based accountability leads to a prosperous, high-growth future; identity politics is the road to a dystopian, zero-sum world of grift. The only question which remains is whether leaders have gotten the memo, and who has the brains and courage to act.
