President Donald Trump said in an interview that he believed civil rights-era protections resulted in white people being “very badly treated,” his strongest indication that the concept of “reverse discrimination” is driving his aggressive crusade against diversity policies.
Speaking to The New York Times on Wednesday, Mr Trump echoed grievances amplified by Vice President JD Vance and other top officials who in recent weeks have urged white men to file federal complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
When asked whether protections that began in the 1960s, spurred by the passage of the Civil Rights Act, had resulted in discrimination against white men, Mr Trump said he believed “a lot of people were very badly treated.”
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“White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university to college,” he said, an apparent reference to affirmative action in college admissions.
“So I would say in that way, I think it was unfair in certain cases.”
He added: “I think it was also, at the same time, it accomplished some very wonderful things, but it also hurt a lot of people — people that deserve to go to a college or deserve to get a job were unable to get a job. So it was, it was a reverse discrimination.”
Mr Trump’s comments were a blunt distillation of his administration’s racial politics, which rest on the belief that white people have become the real victims of discrimination in America.
During his campaign for president, Mr Trump harnessed a political backlash to the Black Lives Matter and other protests, saying there was “a definite anti-white feeling in this country,” and he joined his base in denouncing what he deemed to be “woke” policies.
The Trump administration has claimed that eradicating policies that promote diversity would shepherd in a “merit-based” society. But for civil rights leaders, Mr Trump’s remarks showed that the perceived plight of white men was the true focus.
Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organisation, said there was “no evidence that white men were discriminated against as a result of the Civil Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Act, and efforts to rectify the long history of this country denying access to people based on race in every measurable category.”
Within hours of taking office, Mr Trump ordered the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion offices that were responsible for addressing systemic discrimination against minorities and women, and last year he ordered federal agencies to halt enforcement of core tenets of the bedrock Civil Rights Act.
He has gone on to equate diversity with incompetence and inferiority, and cast himself as the protector of white people both at home and abroad.
Asked on Wednesday whether his immigration agenda was aimed at making the country whiter, Mr Trump said he wanted people “that love our country.”
“It’s very simple,” said Mr Trump, who has carved out exceptions to his crackdown on refugee admissions for mostly white South Africans. “I want people that love our country,” he said.
Carrying out Mr Trump’s agenda is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was formed in 1965 under the Civil Rights Act. The commission’s chair, Andrea Lucas, issued a striking video message last month underlining the agency’s new posture.
“Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex?” Ms Lucas said in the video posted on the social platform X.
“You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws. Contact the EEOC as soon as possible. Time limits are typically strict for filing a claim.”
“The EEOC is committed to identifying, attacking, and eliminating ALL forms of race and sex discrimination — including against white male applicants and employees,” she said.
In the video, Ms Lucas pointed white men to the commission’s FAQ on “DEI-related discrimination,” which notes that DEI “a broad term that is not defined” in the Civil Rights Act.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is the nation’s primary litigator of workplace discrimination, and for decades has been a resource for minorities, women and other groups who have historically faced discrimination.
But Ms Lucas has endeavoured to make it one of Mr Trump’s most powerful tools against DEI, with a particular focus on remedying perceived harms against white men.
Ms Lucas’ tweet was boosted by Stephen Miller, Mr Trump’s top domestic policy adviser, and Vance, who shared the video in a series of tweets railing against DEI last month.
The vice president also shared an essay that blamed diversity initiatives for depriving white men of opportunities. “A lot of people think ‘DEI’ is lame diversity seminars or racial slogans at NFL games,” Mr Vance wrote last month on X.
“In reality, it was a deliberate program of discrimination primarily against white men.”
Labour and civil rights lawyers said Ms Lucas’ video was an escalation in the administration’s tactics to use civil rights laws to remedy what it sees as the disenfranchisement of white men, rather than to help groups that have historically faced discrimination.
“I’ve never seen, in the history of an agency, a blanket request to only one racial group and gender to contact the chair’s office directly to raise concerns about discrimination,” said Jenny R. Yang, a former chair of the commission. “That raises significant concerns.”
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