There is "no place" for DEI initiatives to be used in the United States, Sen. Eric Schmitt said on Newsmax Thursday, one day after leading a Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing focusing on ending illegal discrimination that he said has been in place over the past four years while former President Joe Biden was in office.
The Missouri Republican, speaking on Newsmax's "National Report," said that Democrats have an "obsession with DEI" or diversity, equity, and inclusion, which has proven to be "divisive and discriminatory."
"It has found its way into every element of our society: Higher education, government, and even the corporate boardrooms of America," said Schmitt. "We wanted to highlight those abuses."
The hearing included Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, who has sued more than 40 universities for their admissions policies, and how they use race as a reason to admit people or not admit people."
"I think she's going to go after corporate America on this front, too," said Schmitt.
He added that even with the change in administration, DEI remains "very pervasive" at the state, federal, and local levels.
"We have to root this out completely," the senator said. "There's no place [for DEI] in the United States of America. As Justice Roberts once said: 'The best way to end discrimination based on race is to stop discriminating based on race.'"
However, under Biden, there was a "misalignment of priorities" that resulted in harm to the economy and more, said Schmitt.
"We weren't building chip factories because the company that was going to build the facility hadn't hired enough ex-convicts to meet their DEI requirements," he said. "We weren't laying broadband because they didn't have a climate action plan. This wokeness really did affect real Americans."
Americans, he said, should "be able to rise on their own merit," not because of DEI initiatives that focus on "some immutable characteristic" such as the color of their skin.
But the Biden administration was focused on power and control, Schmitt added.
"The Trump administration has taken this on," he said. "This has been in front of the voters. They don't support this. No one ever voted for DEI. But yet, a lot of people have to sit through these DEI struggle sessions at work or be denied a job or advancement because of their race. That's wrong."
However, he said, Democrats are in "complete denial."
"As President Trump said in his second inaugural address in the [Capitol] Rotunda, this was a revolution of common sense," said Schmitt. "That's what the election was about. The American people rejected the excesses that they saw over the last four years from the left."
He added that Democrats will likely try changing DEI to a "different name."
"At the fundamental level, DEI is cultural Marxism," he said. "It divides the room by oppressor and oppressed. It's not American. It isn't consistent with our values ... we have to be committed in the long term to defeating DEI. We have an administration that certainly supports that now."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.