Editor's Note: This series examines the Heritage Foundation's effort to transform the government through a process called Project 2025. Lean to the Left writers CJ Waldron and V. Susan Hutchinson explore how allies of Donald Trump hope to increase the power of the presidency, eliminate career government positions, and cede regulatory responsibility to the individual states. It is critical for voters to understand key parts of this manifesto, in context with current and future GOP proposals. The statements in Project 2025 are, at best, misleading with outright lies, twisted interpretations of the Constitution, and personal opinions sprinkled throughout, and much of the document has been incorporated into the GOP Platform. So, beware.
Understanding Project 2025: Civil Rights
Ever since President Lyndon Johnson enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Republicans have been trying to undermine it. Voting restrictions, housing discrimination and unfair hiring practices were means of preventing those who needed it most from enjoying the protections the law was intended to provide.
Project 2025 aims at dismantling those protections and replacing them with its “family values” agenda. Using a distorted definition of Critical Race Theory and making Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) buzzwords for gender radicalism, it proposes eliminating the Office of Civil Rights and re-assigning its purposed duties to the Office of Homeland Security (which it has also suggested closing).
Rather than protecting the rights of minorities, Project 2025 wants to protect the rights of those who bully the LBGTQ+ population. It claims that the actual rights being violated are those of “hard working Americans” who are often the subject of ridicule for opposing gender dysphoria and the mutilation of our youth.
They assert that the Civil Rights Act has weakened our workforce, in particular our military, by unfair hiring and promotion practices that have allowed a highly qualified White applicant to be passed over in favor of a less qualified minority. They want to eliminate the DEI policies that resulted in these "unfair" labor practices. That is the essence of Project 2025 as it relates to civil rights.
Voting Rights
Occurring in the midst of a global pandemic, the 2020 Presidential Election demanded some changes be made in the name of keeping the public safe. Despite many of these practices being in place for many years, Republicans who lost elections made unsubstantiated accusations of voter fraud. They demanded, and got, many changes to voter requirements that unfairly targeted minority populations.
Extreme gerrymandering, stricter voter identification requirements, elimination of drop boxes used for mail-in voting, restricting mail-in ballots and closing polling places in minority areas are among the changes imposed by Red States in the name of “preserving voter integrity”.
Some states, like Georgia, have even gone as far as to allow one person to challenge an unlimited number of voter registrations. A Texas-based non-profit, True the Vote, has already begun challenging voter rolls based upon conspiracy theories of voter fraud while at least 70 pro–Donald Trump election denialists are working as election officials in key swing states. The net result would be to delay the certification of election results indefinitely if the outcome wasn’t to Republican’s benefit.
Following the 2020 election, Republicans refused to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory and would respond with the party line “Joe Biden is the president” when queried as to whether they accepted the result. Now they are adopting a similar strategy for the 2024 contest.
When asked if they will accept the results, they now respond with the well-rehearsed comment” I will accept the results of a free and fair election”, leaving the door open to protest the outcome should Donald Trump lose. Some, including the primary author of Project 2025, Kevin Roberts, have even suggested a bloody confrontation should Trump lose again.
Project 2025 has outlined measures as to how the Justice Department would aggressively prosecute those suspected of voter fraud. It makes no mention of what needs to be done in cases of voter suppression or intimidation, while the Trump campaign has demanded ballot observers be present to ensure “election integrity”.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
According to Project 2025, there is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) revolution taking place in America. It began with the Obama administration and continues under President Biden. It claims that policies that incorporate DEI standards unfairly discriminate conservatives, those with certain religious beliefs and those who are “pro-life”. It proposes eliminating DEI requirements from Federal hiring practices.
The authors of the project want to close the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, claiming it pushes an undue cost to taxpayers. Closing the office would save $44 million by their estimates.
But then they propose that those funds be used to augment the budget of the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate, so where are the savings they actually use as justification?
With Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee, Republicans have been quick to jump on the bandwagon denouncing DEI policies and even smearing Harris’s accomplishments by calling her a “DEI hire”. They completely ignore the fact she was duly elected as district attorney, attorney general and senator based upon her performance and not her race or gender.
Diversity is essential in policymaking decisions. Otherwise, the will of one race or gender would overrule resolutions that could have a profound impact on those who are forced to accept a biased ruing. A prime example is the Dobbs decision overturning abortion rights. With the choice being left to the individual states, all-White predominantly male legislators are forcing their beliefs onto women without permitting their input.
Equity is the practice of providing equal pay for equal work. It also means equal treatment when it comes to hiring and firing. Project 2025 wants to include loyalty to Donald Trump as a requirement for keeping your civil service position. The authors want to eliminate racial classifications which they consider to be a form of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act protects job applicants and employees from employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Yet, they want to change the language to delete any mention of race as a qualification.
Inclusion means that those with a disabling condition would not have that used as a disqualifying factor when it comes to federal hiring practices. While Project 2025 does not explicitly state that it is unwilling to provide accommodations, it does demand that the National Institute for Health close the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This would eliminate a vital avenue for those with disabilities to lodge complaints regarding workplace discrimination.
According to authors of Project 2025, inclusion also means being forced to accept a person’s preferred sexual identity. They further claim that it somehow leads to the proliferation of child pornography due to someone’s “unnatural” sexual proclivities.
Project 2025 declares that DEI is nothing less than the promotion of the “Woke” agenda which aims at weakening America by forcing it to accept less qualified candidates for important political positions. It asserts that gender ideology should not be a consideration when it comes to hiring or firing practices.
Critical Race Theory
A major weapon in curtailing Civil Rights is the promotion of the idea that Critical Race Theory is indoctrinating our children to hate America. MAGA Republicans have promoted entire campaigns with the promise of eliminating Critical Race Theory from the classroom.
The problem is it was never in the classroom in the first place. What they term Critical Race Theory is actually a truthful examination of American history. Studying slavery, the Trail of Tears or Japanese Internment during World War II have been called Critical Race Theory because they describe an America that is not the “Shining City on the Hill” espoused by Ronald Reagan and other political figures.
As a part of the Federal government, Project 2025 wants to eliminate Marxist indoctrination and divisive critical race theory programs and make anyone who promotes such ideas to be grounds for immediate dismissal.
The problem is, by ignoring the issues of our past, we allow them to be committed again. Trump has already proposed setting up internment camps for illegal immigrants, should he win re-election.
What’s to stop him from further taking away the civil rights Americans fought to attain? The idyllic version of a return to the 1950s style of America, when racial discrimination, sexual harassment, segregated schools and housing and voter suppression was a way of life, is what Project 2025 embraces.
Chris Waldron has nailed it with this piece explaining the implications of the GOP's Project 2025 on civil rights. We all need to pay attention to the dangers embodied in this document, which is a blueprint for a potential second Trump presidency.