Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) called out white conservatives like Rep. James Comer (R-KY) after he pushed a bill that would modify the Civil Rights Act to outlaw diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the federal government.
During a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday, Comer encouraged members to support the Dismantle DEI Act.
"The Biden-Harris Administration has forced DEI initiatives into nearly every agency and program within the federal government," Comer claimed. "The bill will lend legislative support to the incoming Trump Administration's efforts to eradicate the Biden-Harris Administration's entrenchment of leftist DEI policies in the executive branch."
Lee reacted by opposing the bill.
"If we're being honest here, this bill, which will wipe out every diversity, equity, and inclusion program in our federal agencies, plus those who contract with us, plus those who receive grant money, plus our schools, is nothing new," she said. "This is just the final piece of a decades-long obsession with targeting and dismantling anything that might give marginalized people a fair shot, including DEI programs, which honestly started the second the Civil Rights Act passed."
"Why do predominantly conservative white men believe that the success of a Black person or the opportunity or access of a Black person is an existential threat to them?" Lee asked. "DEI has not given any unfair advantage that society itself does not already confer on certain Americans."
The Pennsylvania Democrat noted that "remedying past discrimination is not, in turn, a discrimination."
"And we're not going to sit here and pretend racism is over just because one Black person on the Supreme Court agreed that it should be," she insisted. "Republicans are trying to bastardize the term DEI to be a slur."
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"When Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was up for confirmation and when Vice President Harris was added to the ticket, they called them DEI hires," Lee added. "They want you to believe that a Harvard graduate with over 20 years of experience, who happens to be a Black woman, is not qualified, but a Fox News personality is qualified to run the Department of Defense, and a WWE executive is qualified to run the Department of Education. Let's be real."
"My Republican colleagues have got to stop punching down on already marginalized communities and face their own fears of a level playing field privately. It's shameful."
