The United States Supreme Court on Thursday, in a unanimous decision in the Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services case, ruled that “reverse discrimination” is in fact discrimination and is unconstitutional.
I am a bit surprised this point had to be litigated, since the 1978 University of California Regents v. Bakke case and a series of Supreme Court cases through the 2003 Gratz v. Bollinger decision have all affirmed the foundational “equal protection” for all citizens principle.
Discrimination in all its forms is wrong and unlawful. Which brings me to my point about the current assault on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs by rich, white men like President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and others. And how their efforts to dismantle decades of progress are disproportionately and unequally hurting women and women of color in the workplace. This is not new.
In 2010, my publisher commissioned a groundbreaking national study through the Polling Company, in response to a sobering Yale University report: 70% of professional Black women in America were unmarried. Our data confirmed a similar figure — 67% — and it set off alarm bells. Oprah Winfrey even did one of her last shows on ABC on the topic.
One year later, my first book, "Black Woman Redefined: Dispelling Myths and Discovering Fulfillment in the Age of Michelle Obama," hit the shelves. It became a national bestseller, won the African American Literary Award for Best Nonfiction Book of 2011 and remained in print for more than a decade. I opened it with the words, “The first duty of a witness is to testify.” And I testified — not just as a writer, but as a single, never-married, professional Black woman entering midlife in America.
I’m testifying again — because women of color in the workforce are under attack. And this time, the attack is strategic, systemic and sweeping.
Despite headlines celebrating that 55 women now lead Fortune 500 companies, only two are Black. Black women still earn just 68 cents for every dollar paid to white men. For Latina and Indigenous women, the gap is even wider. The path to workplace equity remains steep, and DEI initiatives have long been essential supports along that climb.
Trump administration wants to cause federal employees ‘trauma’
After the 2020 racial reckoning, DEI roles surged, growing to more than 20,000 by early 2023, according to Revelio Labs’ analysis of 8.8 million employers. These positions were not symbolic. They offered mentorship, advanced inclusion and opened doors to leadership. However, 2,600 of those roles have been eliminated.
Black women are paying the steepest price. Unemployment among Black women jumped by over 100,000 — from 557,000 unemployed Black women in April to 663,000 in May, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Plus, the unemployment rate for Black women jumped from 5.1% to 6.1% over those two months. Compare that with 3.4% to 3.7% for white men, 6.1% to 5.7% for Black men and 3.5% to 3% for Asian men during that same period. White female unemployment stayed at 3.3% during both months.
This isn’t just a corporate problem. It’s a government-led purge. President Trump’s Executive Orders 14151 (Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing) and 14173 (Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity) have dismantled DEI programs across federal agencies, resulting in mass firings, including of employees who had moved into entirely different roles. It’s a scorched-earth policy, plain and simple.
Last fall, Russell Vought — Trump’s OMB director and a key architect of Project 2025 — stated, “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected… We want to put them in trauma.” Yes, trauma. For serving the public. For being seen as “woke.”
Credit: handout
Credit: handout
Vought doubled down this on June 1 on CNN with Dana Bash, saying, “We do believe there’s weaponized bureaucracy… that are fundamentally woke and weaponized against the American people.” He made it clear: this isn’t about reform — it’s about retribution.
Let’s be honest. This isn’t about trimming budgets or improving performance. It’s about punishing inclusion. It’s about sending a chilling message to women of color, especially Black women: “Know your place.”
Even the U.S. military, which has long been a leader in advancing diversity since President Harry S. Truman integrated the services in 1948, is now under pressure to reverse its progress. The same phenomenon is also occurring in academia, law, technology and business. And this anti-DEI fervor has coincided with a disturbing rise in antisemitic incidents and ICE raids. None of it is coincidental. It’s coordinated. It’s cultural warfare.
And who stands to lose the most? Women. We make up more than 50% of the U.S. population but only hold a fraction of its power. White men — less than 35% of the population — still control over 90% of this nation’s wealth, boardrooms and institutional leadership.
Black women want fairness not a return to past discrimination
Without the protections and advocacy DEI provides, the pipeline for women of color into those spaces collapses.
This is not about being “woke.” It’s about fairness. It’s about ensuring opportunity is linked to talent, not to skin tone, gender or pedigree. It’s about honoring the founding ideal of e pluribus unum — out of many, one.
We’ve come too far to go back. Rolling back DEI is not a neutral policy shift — it’s a dangerous regression. And it threatens to erase decades of hard-won, still-fragile gains made by women like me and generations before me.
That’s why I’m raising my voice again. That’s why I’m testifying.
Because silence is not an option.
Sophia A. Nelson is an award-winning nonfiction author of four books, including “E Pluribus One: Reclaiming our Founders’ Vision for a United America.” She is an award-winning journalist for her work in Essence magazine. She is a renowned global women’s conference speaker and corporate DEI trainer. She is a regular contributor to the AJC.
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