The tentacles of DEI in the federal government run deep after four years of Joe Biden governance, and not everybody can be fired. It’s the lower-level employees who could offer Trump his most resistance, Spencer Lindquist, an investigative reporter with DailyWire, said on American Family Radio Tuesday.
Lindquist told show host Jenna Ellis that some in the administration, perhaps already organized into a level of “employee resource groups,” could be the trouble spots to watch.
“Now within our federal government, you have Pride ERGs, Pride employee resource groups for LGBT activists. You have BIPOC, or Black Indigenous People of Color employee resource groups. And each of these act in these various different departments as ways in which left-wing activism can take place, sometimes in a rather clandestine manner,” Lindquist shared.
It’s not something that will catch Trump administration staff unaware.
Trump signed an executive order on his first day ending federal DEI programs. Shortly after that, the Office of Personnel Management issued a memo to agencies directing them to put their DEI officials on leave and report any attempts within the departments to rename and conceal DEI efforts, Lindquist wrote last week.
Asking for assistance
The memo asked employees to report any efforts to "disguise" DEI programs by using "coded or imprecise language."
Activist and reporter Robby Starbuck, who has gained a reputation for fighting DEI in the corporate world, told Daily Wire he expects pushback against Trump ERGs, describing them as the “hotbed” for left-wing radicalization. They flourished during the Biden administration.
“This isn’t something that is run by specific DEI personnel, but rather it’s a voluntary group of agents or bureaucrats within an agency who take it upon themselves to push left-wing agendas,” Lindquist said. “This is something we’ve seen throughout the federal bureaucracy.”
These are groups that bear watching by the administration and the public, according to Lindquist.
“This could be the way in which DEI gets smuggled into our agencies, the way in which the ideological takeover of our federal bureaucracy is maintained in spite of Trump's will, and in spite of Trump's executive orders,” he added.
The website for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) says its ERGs are voluntary, employee-led communities providing mutual support and guidance. Members share a common interest and work to “promote Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility within the agency and the communities we serve.”
Trump has questioned the usefulness of FEMA as well as its future. In his visit to hurricane-ravaged North Carolina last Friday, Trump said he was considering “getting rid” of agency.
“FEMA has been a very big disappointment,” he said. “It’s very bureaucratic, and it’s very slow.”
It may be easier for Trump to rid the government of ERGs first.
Not so inclusive
Often the ERGs that are named by certain sexual or racial characteristics are openly exclusive in their practices.
“In many cases, people actually aren’t allowed to join one if they are from a racial or sexual background that doesn’t match the focus of the group. The administration could very clearly just say that this is a form of discrimination, this is a race-based or sex-based group, and that can’t be allowed,” Lindquist suggested.
Many of these groups move beyond member support, in which they might host celebrations and various events, and into roles of policy enforcement in some very critical areas of government.
“We’ve seen this most acutely in the intelligence community, which is a critical component of our national defense,” Lindquist said.
The National Security Agency has a Pride ERG that hosted training called "Privilege Decrypted" in which it taught employees about bias and privilege and helped implement official DEI policy regarding pronouns and gender guidance, Lindquist said.
“In the office of the Director of National Intelligence, a cabinet-level intelligence community group of officials, they actually celebrated [LGBTQ] pride by having somebody paint the nails of intelligence agents the colors of the transgender flag,” he described.
The DNI office in 2019, during Trump’s first term, hosted the Intelligence Community (IC) Pride Summit, which highlighted the “importance of diversity and inclusion, particularly for the lesbian, gay, transgender, queer and ally community within the IC,” an office news release stated.
The event, the eighth annual in 2019, predated Trump’s arrival as president but was not abolished during his term.
Crochet your own Pride flag
More recently, one DNI group offered crocheting classes where agents could create their own Pride flags.
“And this all during work hours,” Lindquist said. “They even ran a blog that said, ‘Why I’m an ally.’ These have really acted as nodes of left-wing activism.”
According to the investigative reporter, these are the groups that were missed in Trump’s executive order, which targeted more formal DEI offices within the government.
“But this is the way in which, if the administration doesn’t take action against them, we could see this [DEI] agenda pushed forward even in a more muted fashion,” Lindquist warned.
