By Robyn Munro

In the aftermath of disasters, the search for blame is often swift and politically charged. Politicians and public figures often scramble to point fingers – but why is diversity the Trump administration’s scapegoat of choice? And how should feminists respond?

DEI Under Fire

In a recent controversial twist, re-elected President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the tech-billionaire now heading Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency, made headlines when they publicly blamed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) for two separate crises: the Los Angeles wildfires and a fatal plane crash in Washington, D.C. Their claims suggesting that hiring under DEI frameworks prioritises diversity over competence, leading to inefficiency and even catastrophe.

From Tragedy to Controversy

As bodies were still being recovered from the Potomac River in Washington, following a tragic collision between an American Airlines passenger plane and a Black Hawk helicopter in January, Trump claimed, without evidence, that DEI hiring policies within the Federal Aviation Administration were to blame for the devastating crash that claimed 67 lives.

His inflammatory assertion echoes Elon Musk’s remarks just weeks prior when he blamed Los Angeles Fire Department hiring policies for the severity of the California wildfires. Musk, posting on his platform X, stated: “DEI means DIE”, further claiming that the Los Angeles Fire Department prioritised “DEI over saving lives and homes” and implying that diversity initiatives compromised firefighting efficiency.

These accusations aren’t isolated outbursts; they are part of a broader Republican Party strategy to dismantle DEI programs. Trump’s immediate executive orders to roll back these policies reflect a troubling effort to weaponize DEI, obscuring deeper systemic issues of gender and racial inequality.

Bureaucracy as a Tool for Suppressing DEI

Even when laws mandate DEI policies, institutions often find bureaucratic ways to suppress them rather than fully implementing them. Academic Patricia Hill Collins’ concept of the “disciplinary domain of power” explains how organisations manage diversity efforts not through overt racism or sexism, but through institutional norms, hierarchies and surveillance.  A clear example of this is how companies and government agencies, despite Biden’s push for DEI, have defunded DEI offices, restructured hiring practices or eliminated diversity-focused roles under the guise of “efficiency” or “meritocracy”.

You should be hired based on merit’: Donald Trump on DEI

In a speech to Congress Trump claimed: “whether you are a doctor, accountant, a lawyer or an air traffic controller you should be hired and promoted based on skill and competence, not race or gender…you should be hired based on merit.”

Trump’s emphasis on “merit” versus race or gender strategically invokes a seemingly neutral and logical stance, yet it simultaneously reinforces harmful assumptions about diversity initiatives. By framing meritocracy and diversity as mutually exclusive, Trump perpetuates the false narrative that DEI policies inherently undermine competence and skill. Collins’ framework reveals this rhetoric as a tactic of disciplinary power, subtly reinforcing traditional hierarchies and marginalising groups historically excluded under the guise of efficiency and fairness. This narrative serves to mask deeper systemic inequalities, thus enabling ongoing resistance to genuine inclusivity efforts.

Collins describes a pattern of adaptation, explaining that “laws may change, but the organisations that they regulate rarely change as rapidly”. However, Trump and Musk’s actions go beyond bureaucratic suppression; they are actively working to eliminate DEI policies altogether. Their unapologetic weaponisation of DEI as a scapegoat for national disasters presents a new challenge for feminists, forcing them to combat not just institutional resistance, but also an ideological war against diversity itself. This shift highlights the need for new feminist strategies to counteract the open dismantling of inclusivity efforts under the guise of restoring order and competence.

Hegemonic Power: Framing DEI as Dangerous and Ineffective

Beyond bureaucratic suppression, Trump and Musk’s open attacks on DEI exemplify hegemonic domains of power, where dominant groups manipulate central narratives to justify oppression. By equating DEI with incompetence, they are not merely opposing diversity efforts: they are actively reshaping public perception to see diversity as a liability rather than a necessary corrective to historical exclusion.

Patriarchy, as Collins argues, does not merely function as an outdated system of male dominance. Instead, it evolves in response to new challenges to its authority, using “common sense” arguments to reframe the exclusion of marginalised groups as rational and necessary. Trump and Musk’s rhetoric follows this playbook: rather than explicitly barring marginalised individuals from positions of power, they weaponize concerns over meritocracy, safety, and efficiency to subtly exclude them under the guise of rational governance.

This framing is reinforced by Trump’s response when questioned about his claim that DEI policies caused the Washington D.C plane crash – despite an ongoing investigation. He simply stated: “Because I have common sense”. This offhand dismissal underscores the use of hegemonic power to make anti-DEI arguments appear self-evident and beyond debate, shutting down meaningful discussions on systemic bias. As a result, institutions can roll back inclusion efforts under the pretence of maintaining safety and efficiency, reinforcing systemic inequality while avoiding explicit opposition to diversity itself.

In doing so, Trump and Musk are not simply resisting DEI but are actively constructing an ideological foundation that makes anti-DEI policies appear rational and necessary. This serves as a textbook example of how hegemonic power sustains inequality, not through direct legal mandates, but through cultural discourse that dictates what is perceived as logical, effective and acceptable. Power theories of gender help show that this is not just a debate about workplace policies: it is about who is allowed to hold power, whose expertise is valued, and who is systemically excluded under the guise of “neutrality” and “efficiency”.

The Gender Binary Strikes Back: Trump’s Attack on Gender Diversity

Within days of returning to office, Trump issued an executive order to scrap DEI policies, but he didn’t stop there, signing a further executive order to legally recognise only two sexes – male and female. This move was widely condemned by human rights organisations and medical experts, with the World Health Organisation warning that “rigid gender norms also negatively affect people with diverse gender identities, who often face violence, stigma and discrimination as a result”.

Trump’s rejection of non-binary and transgender identities aligns with a broader moral panic over gender fluidity. Academic Sally Hines, through her discussion of sex and gender tensions in the UK, explains the damaging effects of attempts to “resurrect gender binaries” as a means of exerting social control. Trump’s policies reflect this dynamic; by legally enforcing a fixed, biologically determined gender binary, his administration is not only excluding trans and non-binary people but reinforcing patriarchal and heteronormative power structures.

This rollback of gender inclusivity also demonstrates how institutions reshape bureaucratic systems to reinforce dominant norms. Trump’s policies serve as a bureaucratic mechanism to erase legal recognition of gender diversity, making it harder for trans and non-binary people to access healthcare, employment protections, and legal recognition. This is not just an attack on legal categories – it is an attempt to reassert control over gender itself, disciplining those who do not conform to rigid, binary definitions of sex.

The Fight Continues

Feminism is repeatedly written off as a political movement that has achieved its aims. However, the continued weaponisation of the most vulnerable in society, by those holding immense political and corporate power, highlights the persistent challenges faced by feminists.

The debates surrounding DEI and gender identity reinforce that this fight for justice is far from over. The question remains: will feminism allow itself to be sidelined by the challenges posed by the Trump administration, or will it adapt, challenge, and resist?