
The Kamala Harris-DEI Attacks Seem to Go Only in One Direction
Republicans called the vice president a diversity hire. Then they went silent when she hired a white male to diversify her ticket.

IN THE THREE WEEKS SINCE Vice President Kamala Harris emerged as the likely and then presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, a number of Republican politicians and right-wing commentatorsāin shorthand mockery of ādiversity, equity, and inclusionāāhave dismissed her as a āDEI hire.ā
Some have complained that Joe Biden, in his vetting of running mates four years ago, promised to choose a woman. Others have alleged, falsely, that Biden promised to choose a black woman. Either way, they argue, Harrisās race and gender are the only reasons she got the job.
But as Harris vetted her own potential running mates in late July and early August, none of these critics raised objections that her short list consisted entirely of white men, or that the conventional wisdom said it had to be that way. When she picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, some in the anti-DEI chorus accused her of snubbing a Jewish governorāJosh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who was reportedly her second choice. But none protested that women and people of color werenāt on her list at all.
The contrast between these two situations is revealing. The āDEIā rap on Harris isnāt about objecting to the selection of running mates based on race and sex. Itās about objecting when that selection process favors women and minorities.
The DEI attacks on Harris have been persistent and crude. Rep. Tim Burchett led the way, calling her āour DEI vice president.ā When CNN asked Burchett about this, he claimed, falsely, that Biden āsaid he was going to hire a black female for vice president.ā Burchett went on: āWhat about white females? What about any other group? It justāwhen you go down that route, you take mediocrity. And thatās what they have right now as the vice president.ā
On Fox News, Rep. Chip Roy made a similar crack about the āDEI vice president.ā Rep. Harriet Hageman called Harris āintellectually just really kind of the bottom of the barrel. . . . I think she was a DEI hire.ā Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor of Texas, told Newsmax that Harrisāāthe laughing lady whoās never accomplished anythingāāāwould be the queen of DEI if she were elected. She is DEI.ā Patrick vowed that with a Donald Trump victory in November, āwe will be rid of all this DEI woke culture.ā
Two former Trump administration officials joined in these attacks. Ric Grenell, Trumpās former acting director of national intelligence, told NBC News that Harris was the āproductā of a cushy ārevolving door of DEI appointmentsā in California. Sebastian Gorka, who served as a deputy assistant to the president under Trump, used coarser language. āSheās a DEI hire, right? Sheās a woman. Sheās colored. Therefore, sheās got to be good,ā he jeered in a Newsmax interview on July 9.
Later that month, Gorka asserted that Harrisās āonly qualification was having a vagina and the right skin color.ā On Newsmax, he called her āa DEI hireā who would inherit the nomination ābecause sheās female and her skin color is the correct DEI color.ā Gorka went on to slander female Secret Service agents who were part of Trumpās security detail when he was grazed by a bullet on July 13:
Outside of the open border and the cost of living, what is the thing thatās most annoying Americans in the last three years? Itās diversity, itās equity, itās inclusion, which probably almost got my former boss murdered last Saturdayāthose short, overweight, incompetent female agents screaming, āWhat do we do? What do we do?ā
Other figures in right-wing media joined in the DEI ridicule. Fox News host Jesse Watters sneered, āThe only reason Kamala is in the White House is because of the DEI deal Biden cut with Bernie [Sanders] to seal the nomination.ā Another Fox News talker, Jeanine Pirro, said Harris represented āclassic DEI culture. Do you not understand why she was chosen in the first place? She has proven to America why DEI doesnāt work.ā
DEI is a complicated topic. The idea is to diversify workplaces, colleges, and other settings by deliberately seeking and sometimes giving extra consideration to applicants from groups that have been historically underrepresented or disadvantaged. Sometimes this practice crosses over into something that feels more like discrimination against men or white people, and thatās where conservatives raise concerns. But often, they exploit these clumsier versions of DEI to rally the Republican base against the whole idea.
Harris is an example of DEI as itās broadly understood. Biden has acknowledged that he sees her, in part, as an affirmation of āthe values of diversity, equality, inclusion.ā But the Harris campaignās vice-presidential selection process has exposed an embarrassing asymmetry in the outcry against DEI.
When Harris set out to find a running mate, one of her goals was to diversify her ticket. She looked for someone who would appeal to white men, and she narrowed her short list to white men. On July 24, NBC News reported:
The campaign is particularly interested in someone who will appeal to the demographics and the voters that Biden would have brought to the table, including older white voters and suburban women, according to a source familiar with the campaignās thinking. That source said Harrisā team also would like the running mate to appeal specifically to white men who donāt like Trump but who may question whether they want to vote for a Black and South Asian woman.
A week later, the New York Times reported that Harris was āseriously considering only white menā for her ticket. Specifically:
While other nominees started with lists of dozens of names, Ms. Harris has quickly narrowed hers to six, with Mr. Shapiro, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona widely seen by Democrats as the top contenders. Mr. Beshear, Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have also participated in the vetting process.
Harris wasnāt looking for a white male running mate to rectify past discrimination or disadvantage, as is often the case with DEI on behalf of women and minorities. But she was pursuing the ādiversityā part of DEI: using race and sex to balance her ticket and broaden her campaignās representation of the population.
I canāt find any evidence that the people who called Harris a DEI hire have objected to her campaignās obvious filtration of potential running mates by race and gender. In the days since she chose Walz, none of them has complained that heās white or male. Instead, theyāve complained that heās soft on undocumented immigrants, sympathetic toward radical Muslims, and too cozy with Black Lives Matter.
Last week, on a right-wing podcast, Roy denounced āwoke-transgender-DEI nonsenseā in the Democratic party. He claimed that Walz had āadvanced DEIā and had āembraced . . . radical elements of the Islamic push in Minnesota.ā Hageman, in a tweet, protested that Walz āgave illegal aliens free healthcare and college tuition. And he cheered BLM riots that burned Minneapolis to the ground.ā
Gorka, on his own podcast, scoffed that Walz āgenuflected to BLMā and had been chosen to āplacate the pro-Hamas, pro-jihadi voters in Minnesota.ā Pirro accused Walz of condoning free health care and education for illegal immigrants. āHe throws us right back to George Floyd,ā to a ātime in our history that we want to forget,ā she groused, referring in part to the COVID era and in part to the black man whose murder by a white police officer set off protests and riots in 2020.
Watters, on his TV show, fumed that Walz ādidnāt protect Minneapolis when it was barbecued by Black Lives Matter.ā He told the Fox News audience, falsely, that āWalz let his best city burn down, flooded it with illegals, and helped cancel the state flag to make it look more like the flag of Somalia.ā And he mocked Walz for saying after the Floyd riots that āa society that does not put equity and inclusion at the center of itā would āeventually come to the places where weāre at.ā
If Republicans and people in conservative media want to criticize DEI, thatās fine. Theyāre welcome to make a principled case against consideration of race and gender in employment, college admissions, and politics. But if they donāt object to considering race and gender when the favored group is white men, thatās a clue that what theyāre harboring isnāt a principled position. Itās a bias.