DEI and woke ideology are on life support under Trump's return to DC, but could come roaring back with rebrand
DEI policies face Trump administration pressure in 2025, but Terry Schilling warns the economic threat could resurge under future Democratic leadership.
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President Donald Trump’s early second-term blitz against "woke" ideology, including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, have rippled far beyond Washington, D.C., as companies roll back such policies.
But the left-wing credos could come roaring back to public view under a rebranding, the president of American Principles Project (APP) told Fox News Digital.
"DEI is still alive. It's not dead yet. It's bleeding, right? We've got blood here, but we know it's vulnerable," Terry Schilling, the president of conservative nonprofit and advocacy group the American Principles Project, told Fox News Digital in a December Zoom interview. "But they're still in charge of the admissions offices and colleges. They're still in charge of HR departments, and they're still largely a part of Silicon Valley."
American Principles Project has documented the cultural shifts in recent years to embrace DEI initiatives, which conservatives argue replace merit with race and identity preferences that effectively penalize some Americans at work and at school through the expansion of bureaucracy and ideological pressure. Schilling said that while the "woke" push seen under the Biden era is retreating under the Trump administration, it is still alive and could make a return.
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"DEI is retreating," Schilling said in the interview. "But I think that it's important that we recognize that DEA is not disbanding, it's rebranding."
But the left-wing DEI credos could come roaring back to public view under a rebranding, the president of American Principles Project (APP) told Fox News Digital. (iStock )
Trump swiftly moved to drop the hammer on DEI and woke initiatives upon his return to office in January, including signing an executive order on day one, titled "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which directed federal agencies to stamp out DEI-style programs across the federal government. The following day, Trump signed a second order aimed at "restoring merit-based opportunity," including changes for federal contracting and related compliance.
"We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military. And our country will be woke no longer," Trump said from the dais in Congress in March, celebrating his administration's achievement just a few months into the job.
