Race discrimination is illegal and unconstitutional regardless of ‘equitable’ motives.
Yes, so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion is on life support. President Trump’s executive orders have driven a stake through the heart of DEI programs in the federal government, and his agencies are steadily bringing universities, states, and cities to heel.
But woke policymakers are not giving up. A new tool is emerging to steer benefits and spending toward favored racial groups in the name of “equity.” The new tool is geography.
Consider this: Hales Corners is a small village in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. Since 1968, the Milwaukee County Parks Department has run a large, deep-water pool in Hales Corners. It’s been a fixture of the community. But the pool now needs some $600,000 in repairs.
In a recent “Aquatics Study,” instead of fixing the Hales Corners pool, the Parks Department recommended permanently closing it. Why? The reason is simple: Too many white people live in Hales Corners. About 90 percent of Hales Corners is white, meaning that principles of “equity” require deprioritization of the pool repairs. “Equity is a central consideration,” according to the department. “Consideration should be both user equity needs as well as equitable aquatic offerings,” whatever that means.
Buried deep within the report and beyond all the “equity” gobbledygook, the Parks Department revealed the true metric of decision-making: the “Equity Index.” This is a mathematical formula that ranks every park in Milwaukee County. A significant part of the calculation is the racial makeup of the surrounding area, so parks in black neighborhoods score higher than parks in white neighborhoods.
Like other white areas, the Hales Corners pool scored poorly, ranking 128th among 153 total parks in Milwaukee County. It only had an “Equity Index” score of 3 out of 10, meaning principles of racial equity demand that the park be deprioritized because of the village’s whiteness.
But this isn’t just some local problem with bureaucrats pushing DEI. A recent investigation by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) found that Milwaukee County’s “Equity Index” is mostly based on a tool promoted by the Trump administration. The tool is called the “Social Vulnerability Index,” or SVI, run by the Centers for Disease Control. The index measures a certain geographic area’s “vulnerability,” and according to the SVI, having more nonwhite residents makes the area more “vulnerable.”