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Two years after President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14151 to end federal DEI offices, Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers asked a simple question on The Drill Down podcast: has DEI really been killed, or is it just dead on paper? Their guest, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, said the Justice Department plans to “play offense” on civil‑rights enforcement. That claim deserves a close look.
What The Drill Down revealed about DEI and enforcement
The podcast lays out a clear claim: the White House ordered the Office of Management and Budget to terminate federal DEI offices and many agencies started to comply. Peter Schweizer and Eric Eggers pressed the point that the Trump Administration’s orders targeted both internal DEI offices and race‑conscious contractor rules. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon’s line — “playing offense on civil rights” — means the DOJ Civil Rights Division is actively investigating and enforcing rules against race‑based preferences as it interprets them.
Paper change vs. real change in federal DEI policy
Here’s the blunt truth: the policy is on paper, but practice is mixed. Executive Order 14151 and subsequent contractor guidance are real. Some agencies removed DEI clauses, and the White House pushed follow‑on steps for contractors. But courts have enjoined parts of those orders, and litigation is ongoing. Meanwhile, big corporations like Apple, Costco, and United still boast race‑conscious programs. So DEI might be “outlawed” in theory, but in practice it’s alive in boardrooms and in bureaucratic habits.
Curbing corruption and restoring merit — the case for acting in practice
Schweizer and Eggers made a sharp point about incentives: when government spending rewards race‑based set‑asides, a whole industry grows up around those rules. The Small Business Administration’s minority set‑aside programs have shown how easy it is to game the system. Ending DEI on paper without rooting out the business models and contracts that depend on it will only replace one set of cronies with another. If Harmeet K. Dhillon and the Justice Department are serious about “playing offense,” they should focus on real enforcement where fraud and favoritism have taken root.
The road ahead: courts, agencies, and activists
The fight is not over. Courts will keep weighing the limits of the executive orders. Agencies must move from memo to muscle. Conservatives who want DEI dead in practice should keep the pressure on OMB, agency heads, and the DOJ to follow through. That means audits, contract reviews, and prosecutions where rules were broken. Otherwise, DEI will remain a zombie: pronounced dead by the White House, chewing up taxpayer dollars and merit in the shadows.
