Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights is equality of outcome promised to Americans. In this new millennium, Democrats have denounced the essence of true American greatness. The fact that this put-upon assemblage continues to belly-up to the bar of entitlements first offered by Democrat leaders like Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” legislation shows both how entitled they have become and out of touch they are with our Constitution.

A major part of the Democrat platform has been devoted to helping non-white minorities enjoy an unearned piece of the American Dream. Much of that assistance, however, didn’t help them to help themselves. Barack Obama’s eight years in office saw the surfacing of DEI and a doubling down on the alleged advancement of social progress and equality. Pew Research concluded, “it amounted to a steady hollowing of the middle class… during Obama’s presidency, and income inequality reached its highest point since 1928.” Unearned progress instead of opportunity became de rigueur and continuously being stuffed down our throats.

The American Dream

The American Dream has long held that opportunity upstages outcome in what our nation should promise its citizens. Trying to make citizens something they are not moves directly against our Constitution and our Founders’ hopes for this nation. As John Lloyd has pointed out in Quillette, “the new gospel of total and enforced racial and gender equality of outcome… are necessarily a consequence of discrimination rather than differing levels of experience or efficiency.” This is only the tip of the progressive iceberg, standing directly in the face of equality of opportunity, which is rightfully all one should hope for in America. It is the primary tenet of the American Dream that has attracted so many foreigners to our soil.

The Left prides itself in being the proponent of equality of outcome, especially for those other than the white race, straight sexual proclivity, and/or people with physical/mental inability. The Democrat talking point is their alleged dedication to “ensuring a stronger and more just future for every American.” Yet they fail to reconcile this rhetorical justice with the fact that many people simply don’t have the talent or the drive to apply themselves in their efforts to succeed. This is hardly our nation’s fault. Victor Davis Hanson posits that in colleges it follows that “Asian- and white Americans for decades have been systematically, overtly discriminated against by ignoring or not requiring test scores and downplaying grade point averages.”

Good Jobs Go Begging

America’s continuing government largess has also created extraordinary student loan debt for many earning worthless college degrees (most majors advancing DEI). As of the second quarter of 2024 student loan debt in the U.S. stands over $1.75 trillion and 65% of student loans are 90 days or more delinquent. More than 92% of this is federal student loan debt, while the remaining amount entails private student loans. The Bureau of Labor Statistics lists the sixteen fastest growing job classifications in 2024 with average incomes of over $59,000. They require at least a bachelor’s or graduate degree; DEI majors are deservedly ignored because they signal a racialized instead of competency-based candidate.

Ironically, big tech firms have voluntarily laid off many of their DEI hires beginning in 2023 as their profitability declined. Democrats view this as an alarming adjustment instead of admitting such hires were predominantly big tech virtual signaling, contributing little to their corporate product or profitability. When market forces took hold, woke company virtue was the first thing to go.

University Education Opportunity Costs

Opportunity costs are the value of what is neglected or forgone when choosing one option over another, especially when the choice turns out to be more costly in time or money. Choosing DEI instead of STEM majors leaves students unable to pay off their student loans. This opportunity cost of appropriating government largess for some young people is astronomical. Choosing DEI over STEM majors results in students’ inability to find jobs allowing them to pay off their student loans after graduation. Hardly high value.

Shockingly, many report it tougher to gain admittance to veterinary school than medical school. This is likely due to wokeness and DEI being irrelevant in schools of veterinary medicine. Woke animals aren’t de rigueur. As Rich Vedder reported on the dumbing down of American schools, “If you set the bar low, that’s all you are going to get. But if you set the bar high for students, and support teachers and leaders, it [higher student performance] is doable.” Setting the bar higher subjugates rampant wokeism.

Being a university professor for 40 years, I can attest to the fact that student loans attract many young people to college where they often choose “easy” or “fun” majors having little or no job potential after graduation. As I have shown elsewhere, the pressure to succeed academically for those who are deficient often leads to students committing plagiarism, and earning expulsion from the academy, another opportunity cost. Sadly, college teachers are now giving away grades and enhancing mediocrity instead of meritocracy through wrongheaded grade inflation, fulfilling students’ grade expectations even though their actual learning is de minimis.

Jordan McGillus laments our torrid educational pace backwards in technology saying, “Even if every environmental regulation were repealed, chipmaking firms in the U.S. would struggle to produce their wares at scale and over the long term, because the country lacks the skilled workforce to sustain such production.” Our woke educators at both the K-12 and university levels are responsible for this technological malady. Apparently being versed in high tech isn’t sufficiently woke.

In a review of Notre Dame University, Jonathan Clarke argues that, “The implicit pact of modern secular culture seems to be that we will not ask ourselves and each other questions about ultimate value. In their place, we substitute professional norms, status games, psychotherapy, and a vast and tepid sea of tolerance” -- woke nirvana.

Forbes offers an analysis of the fastest growing careers in the marketplace. None of these careers have anything to do with DEI, nor should they. They are Nursing practitioner, Medical/Health Services Manager, Physician Assistant, Data Scientist, Information Security Analyst, Software Developer, Wind Turbine Service Technician, and Solar Photovoltaic Installer. Their average starting salary is $82,963.

Heather Mac Donald argues that “President Joe Biden’s hilariously named ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ transfers close to $400 billion of appropriated taxpayer wages into subsidies for wind and solar development… Those billions will follow all previous foreign aid into the same sinkhole of corruption and incompetence.” Biden, like Barack Obama, has never seen a politically correct source that he hasn’t been willing to spend taxpayers’ dollars on… whether or not it actually meets the advertised end.

New York Times reporter Michael Bender found that U.S. counties with the biggest Democratic victories in 2020 delivered 1.9 million fewer votes for Kamala Harris in 2024 than they had for Biden in 2020. Apparently, the choice of either voting for Kamala Harris or not voting favored the latter option for many Democrats. One might hope that the importance of equality of opportunity rather than outcome may finally be sinking in now with Trump back in office.

Christopher Rufo has seized DEI by its monstrous neck and has now challenged the Trump Administration to abolish it. Florida governor Ron DeSantis has employed Rufo’s skills and tenacity to examine DEI throughout Florida’s State University System and eliminate it. Rufo explains that, “The answer to left-wing racialism is not right-wing racialism -- it is the equal treatment of individuals under law, according to their talents and virtues, rather than their ancestry and anatomy.” This is opportunistic outcome.

Image: Quinn Dombroski