The Washington Post reported in a couple of stories over the weekend that the Trump administration has directed some Department of Health and Human Services components to stop using certain words in the budget process, including “diversity.” It’s not known whether other agencies have received such instructions, or what the reason for the direction is, but speaking just of the ban on “diversity,” I’d say this is a promising development.


Of course, the word has a legitimate meaning, but these days that’s not what it’s used for in 99 instances out of a hundred. For a long time, rather, the word has been used simply to mask a pro-preference, anti-merit, anti-assimilation agenda that ill behooves any federal government agency. Indeed, the government is banned by the Constitution and civil-rights laws from using racial and ethnic classifications except in special circumstances, and so, for instance, when an agency is “striving for more diversity in hiring,” it is likely breaking the law in doing so. Either that, or the term belongs in that category of words “used so frequently that they were essentially meaningless,” to quote the Post. In academia, I’ve noted that the word should be replaced with the barnyard expletive to clarify its meaning.

So, sure, why not ban it?