Congressional Testimony
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Othram Inc. CEO Mittelman Testifies Before House Natural Resources Subcommittees
WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs released the following written testimony by David Mittelman, CEO of Othram Inc., Woodlands, Texas, from a July 14, 2026, joint hearing entitled "Innovative Technologies and Initiatives to Tackle the MMIP Crisis in Indian Country." MMIP stands for missing and murdered indigenous persons.
* * *
Chairman Gosar, Chairman Hurd, Ranking Members, and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this written testimony regarding the role that ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs released the following written testimony by David Mittelman, CEO of Othram Inc., Woodlands, Texas, from a July 14, 2026, joint hearing entitled "Innovative Technologies and Initiatives to Tackle the MMIP Crisis in Indian Country." MMIP stands for missing and murdered indigenous persons. * * * Chairman Gosar, Chairman Hurd, Ranking Members, and Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to submit this written testimony regarding the role thatadvances in forensic science can play in addressing the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) crisis.
The disappearance or murder of any individual is a tragedy. When that individual cannot be identified, the consequences extend far beyond the loss of life itself. Families are left without answers. Tribal communities are denied the opportunity to return loved ones home according to their customs and traditions. Law enforcement is often unable to answer the most fundamental question in any investigation: Who was the victim?
For decades, many of these cases remained unresolved not because investigators lacked commitment, nor because evidence was unavailable, but because the scientific tools necessary to identify the unknown simply did not exist. Today, advances in forensic DNA have fundamentally changed what is scientifically possible.
My name is Dr. David Mittelman. I am a molecular biologist by training and have spent nearly thirty years developing genomic technologies for biomedical research and forensic science. I currently serve as Chief Executive Officer of Othram, an accredited forensic laboratory specializing in modern forensic DNA testing. During the past several years, I have had the opportunity to work with federal, state, local, Tribal, and international law enforcement agencies on the identification of unknown human remains and the application of modern DNA technologies to unresolved criminal investigations.
I appreciate the Committee's interest in this topic because I believe forensic science has reached an important point in its evolution. For more than thirty years, forensic DNA has served primarily as a technology for comparison. It has been used to determine whether biological evidence matched someone who was already known. Today, the capabilities of forensic DNA have fundamentally expanded. Modern forensic DNA technologies no longer depend exclusively on a known suspect, a convicted offender, or an immediate family reference sample. They can now generate investigative leads and identify many individuals who previously could not have been identified.
This evolution has profound implications for the MMIP crisis. Many investigations involving missing and unidentified Indigenous persons begin without the investigative leads or known reference samples upon which traditional forensic DNA has historically depended. Modern forensic DNA provides investigators with capabilities that simply did not exist when many of these cases were originally opened.
The purpose of my testimony is to explain how forensic DNA has evolved, why those advances are particularly relevant to the MMIP crisis, and why the United States now has an opportunity to substantially reduce the backlog of unidentified human remains rather than simply managing it.
The Identification Gap
Every homicide investigation begins with a victim. Before investigators can determine why a crime occurred or who may be responsible, they must first determine who the victim was.
A victim's identity is the key that unlocks nearly every subsequent stage of an investigation. Once investigators know who the victim was, they can reconstruct the individual's movements, identify family members and associates, determine where they lived and worked, review missing person reports, examine financial and digital records, and begin understanding the circumstances that led to the person's disappearance or death. Until identity is established, many of those investigative pathways remain unavailable.
For this reason, identifying unknown human remains has always been both a humanitarian responsibility and an investigative necessity. Families deserve answers about what happened to their loved ones.
Tribal communities deserve the opportunity to restore dignity to those who have remained unidentified, sometimes for decades. Law enforcement deserves the opportunity to pursue justice armed with the information that only identification can provide.
These objectives are closely connected. Identification is often viewed as the conclusion of an investigation because it provides a name to an unknown individual. In reality, identification frequently marks the beginning of the next phase of an investigation. Once identity is established, investigators can begin asking questions that previously could not be answered. Where did this person live? When were they last seen? Who knew them? Were they ever reported missing? What circumstances surrounded their disappearance? Those questions often generate the first meaningful investigative leads.
The importance of identification extends beyond humanitarian considerations. In a recent peer-reviewed retrospective analysis1 that my colleagues and I conducted of 477 unidentified human remains cases successfully resolved using modern forensic DNA methods, more than one-quarter of homicide cases were associated with criminal charges, convictions, or the identification of deceased or serial offenders following identification. We also found that approximately seven percent of cases initially classified as having an undetermined manner of death were subsequently determined to be homicides after the victim had been identified. These findings demonstrate that restoring identity provides answers to families while also strengthening public safety by uncovering violent crime and creating new investigative opportunities.
The Evolution of Forensic DNA
To understand why these advances are so significant, it is helpful to understand how forensic DNA has traditionally been used. For more than three decades, forensic DNA has been one of the most effective investigative tools available to law enforcement. DNA profiling and the establishment of the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) transformed criminal investigations by making it possible to compare biological evidence recovered from crime scenes against DNA profiles obtained from known individuals. These technologies have identified violent offenders, excluded innocent individuals from suspicion, linked crimes committed across multiple jurisdictions, identified victims of mass disasters, and strengthened confidence in the criminal justice system.
* * *
1 C. Lasyone, B. Budowle, K. Mittelman, & D. Mittelman. (2025) Investigative and policy impacts of forensic genetic genealogy in the identification of human remains. Forensic Science International: Synergy, 11, 100651.
* * *
Traditional forensic DNA is fundamentally a technology for comparison. Biological evidence recovered during an investigation is analyzed and compared against DNA profiles that are already known. Those known profiles may belong to convicted offenders, criminal suspects, missing persons reference samples, or biological relatives who voluntarily provide DNA to assist an investigation. Regardless of the circumstance, the underlying question remains the same: Does this DNA match someone we already know?
When an appropriate comparison sample exists, this approach is highly effective and remains the foundation of modern forensic investigation.
Many investigations, however, begin without any known individual against whom a comparison can be made.
This is particularly true in cases involving unidentified human remains. The individual is often unknown.
Their DNA is generally not present in CODIS because they are victims rather than convicted offenders.
Even when family members are searching for a missing loved one, traditional forensic DNA typically depends upon the availability of a close biological relative, most commonly a parent, child, or full sibling, who has submitted a reference sample for comparison. In many cases, those relatives may not know where to submit DNA, may never have reported the individual missing, may no longer be living, or simply may not exist. Investigators may possess a high-quality DNA profile from the unidentified individual yet still have no appropriate person against whom that profile can be compared. Under these circumstances, even a high-quality DNA profile may not produce an identification because there is simply no one to compare it against.
Forensic DNA Today
Over the past decade, advances in DNA sequencing have fundamentally expanded the capabilities of forensic DNA. Traditional forensic DNA relies on approximately twenty genetic markers to determine whether biological evidence matches a known individual or a close biological relative. Modern forensic DNA examines hundreds of thousands of genetic markers across the genome. This is not simply more information. It is a fundamentally different scale of information, making it possible to identify more distant biological relationships and generate investigative leads that previously did not exist.
For much of the past thirty years, DNA was primarily used to confirm an investigative hypothesis. Today, forensic DNA can often become the starting point of the investigation by identifying previously unknown biological relatives and generating entirely new investigative leads.
Traditional forensic DNA remains indispensable because it provides the most reliable method for confirming identity and supporting criminal prosecutions. Modern forensic DNA extends those capabilities into investigations that historically reached an investigative dead end because no suitable comparison sample existed.
Cases that once had little realistic path toward identification can now be revisited using scientific methods that simply did not exist when those investigations first began.
Why This Matters for the MMIP Crisis
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis presents many of the investigative challenges that have historically limited the effectiveness of traditional forensic DNA.
Many investigations begin years after an individual disappeared. Human remains may have been exposed to the environment for extended periods, resulting in degraded biological evidence. Cases often span multiple jurisdictions or contain incomplete investigative records. Families may be dispersed across different communities or may be unaware of the procedures for submitting DNA reference samples. In many investigations, there is no suspect, no immediate family reference sample, and no obvious investigative lead.
These are precisely the circumstances in which modern forensic DNA provides capabilities that were previously unavailable.
It is important to recognize that many unresolved MMIP investigations are not the result of inadequate investigative effort. Tribal law enforcement, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the FBI, state and local law enforcement agencies, medical examiners, coroners, and forensic anthropologists have worked these cases with dedication and professionalism, often over many years or decades. The challenge has frequently been that the available scientific tools could not answer the questions investigators most needed answered.
Biological evidence collected years or even decades ago can now be reexamined using methods that provide substantially more information than was previously available. As DNA sequencing technologies have matured and genealogical resources have expanded, evidence that once yielded no investigative leads may now provide a realistic path toward identification.
For families, this means that cases once considered unsolvable may finally produce answers. For investigators, it means that long-standing investigations can be revisited with entirely new scientific capabilities rather than simply reexamining the same investigative theories. For Tribal communities, it means the opportunity to restore names to those who have remained unidentified, return loved ones home, and strengthen the pursuit of justice for victims whose identities have remained unknown.
These outcomes should not be viewed as separate objectives. They are different outcomes of the same investigative process. Identifying an unknown individual restores dignity to families and communities while simultaneously providing investigators with the information necessary to determine whether a crime occurred, identify witnesses, establish timelines, and pursue those responsible.
Operation Spirit Return
Recognizing the expanded capabilities of modern forensic DNA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs established Operation Spirit Return to apply advanced DNA sequencing and forensic genetic genealogy to missing and unidentified American Indian and Alaska Native individuals.
I have had the privilege of participating in this effort through Othram's selection as one of the laboratories supporting the program. While I cannot speak on behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I believe Operation Spirit Return reflects an important recognition that advances in forensic science have fundamentally changed what is now possible in long-unsolved investigations.
Operation Spirit Return is already demonstrating the practical impact of these capabilities. The following examples illustrate the kinds of cases that historically had little or no practical path toward identification using the forensic methods available at the time. They represent only a small sample of the individuals who have now been identified through the program.
* Michelle Elbow Shield (South Dakota) - Michelle's remains remained unidentified because investigators had no practical way to connect her to surviving relatives through traditional forensic methods. Modern forensic DNA established those distant relative connections and ultimately restored her identity.
* Glenn Thomas Tate Jr. (Sacaton, Arizona) - Only partial skeletal remains were recovered from a remote desert location, leaving investigators with little evidence from which to establish identity despite extensive investigation. Modern forensic DNA provided the viable investigative path forward.
* Martha Bassett (Will County, Illinois) - Martha remained unidentified for more than five decades because no investigative leads connected her remains to a missing person. Modern forensic DNA generated those leads and ultimately restored her identity.
* Blaine Has Tricks (Marysville, Washington) - Blaine's remains had been severely fragmented and disposed of in a landfill. He had never been reported missing, leaving investigators without context or investigative leads. Modern forensic DNA made identification possible despite those extraordinary circumstances.
Although each investigation was unique, they shared a common characteristic. The evidence to solve the case was always there, but the agencies lacked the resources and new technology to make the case solvable. Modern forensic DNA provided those leads, allowing these investigations to move forward after years, and in some cases decades, without meaningful progress.
The impact extends beyond restoring names to the unknown. In some investigations, establishing identity provides the foundation necessary to identify offenders and bring criminal cases to resolution.
For example, the identification of Teedeenae "Jackson" Yearby provided investigators with a critical connection needed to identify his remains and advance a homicide investigation that ultimately resulted in a guilty plea from the assailant.
Equally important, the program recognizes that technology alone is not sufficient. Successful human identification depends upon collaboration among Tribal Nations, investigators, families, medical examiners and coroners, forensic anthropologists, forensic laboratories, prosecutors, victim advocates, and many others. Modern forensic DNA provides powerful new capabilities, but those capabilities are most effective when integrated into multidisciplinary investigations built upon collaboration, transparency, and respect for Tribal sovereignty.
Operation Spirit Return demonstrates what is possible when modern forensic DNA is applied to long-unsolved investigations. Continued support offers the opportunity to move beyond resolving individual cases toward systematically reducing the backlog of unidentified American Indian and Alaska Native individuals. It also establishes the investigative infrastructure, scientific expertise, and collaborative partnerships necessary to ensure that future cases can be resolved more quickly, reducing the burden on Tribal communities and law enforcement while increasing opportunities to identify offenders and provide answers to families.
Operation Spirit Return is therefore more than the application of a new laboratory method. It represents the practical implementation of a scientific capability that did not exist when many of these investigations began. It demonstrates how advances in forensic science can be integrated into existing investigative systems to produce meaningful outcomes for families, Tribal communities, and law enforcement.
The Opportunity Before Us
For decades, the national discussion surrounding unidentified human remains has focused on managing a backlog that could not realistically be eliminated using the scientific tools available at the time. Every successful identification represented an important achievement, but there was broad recognition that many cases would likely remain unresolved because investigators simply lacked the scientific capability to identify individuals when no investigative lead or appropriate family reference sample existed.
Today, advances in forensic DNA require that assumption to be reconsidered. Modern forensic DNA has fundamentally expanded what is scientifically possible. Rather than depending exclusively on a known suspect, a convicted offender, or an immediate family reference sample, investigators can now generate entirely new investigative leads from biological evidence itself. While no scientific method will solve every case, the capabilities available today are substantially different from those that existed when many unidentified human remains investigations began.
For the first time, the United States has the scientific capability to systematically reduce the national backlog of unidentified human remains rather than simply managing it.
That opportunity has particular importance for Indian Country. Every successful identification returns a loved one to a family, restores dignity to Tribal communities, reduces the investigative burden carried by Tribal and federal law enforcement, and, in some cases, provides the information necessary to identify violent offenders who otherwise might never be discovered.
The principal challenge is no longer scientific capability. The principal challenge is deployment.
The United States has already invested for decades in developing forensic DNA, building forensic laboratories, establishing CODIS, supporting medical examiner systems, and creating national programs for missing and unidentified persons. Advances in forensic DNA now create an opportunity to realize a far greater return on those investments by applying capabilities that did not previously exist.
The question before us is therefore not whether these technologies work. The scientific literature, operational experience, and growing number of successful investigations have already demonstrated that they do. The question is whether these capabilities will be deployed broadly enough to fundamentally change the trajectory of unidentified human remains investigations across the United States, including throughout Indian Country.
Recommendations
In light of these advances, I respectfully offer three recommendations for the Committee's consideration.
First, ensure that modern forensic DNA capabilities are available to Tribal Nations and the investigators serving Indian Country, regardless of geography or local resources.
Second, shift the national objective from managing the backlog of unidentified human remains to systematically reducing it. The scientific capability to make substantial progress now exists. Public policy should reflect that opportunity.
Third, continue supporting the scientific standards, accreditation, validation, and multidisciplinary partnerships that have made forensic DNA one of the most trusted forms of scientific evidence in the criminal justice system. Maintaining those standards will ensure that these expanded capabilities continue to earn the confidence of investigators, courts, Tribal Nations, and the public.
Conclusion
After nearly three decades working in genomics, I have never been more optimistic about our ability to restore names to the unknown.
For the first time, the United States has the scientific capability to systematically reduce the national backlog of unidentified human remains rather than simply managing it. This represents a fundamental shift from accepting a persistent backlog as inevitable to treating it as a solvable national challenge.
The opportunity before us is to ensure these capabilities are deployed at the scale necessary to return more loved ones to their families, reduce the burden on Tribal and federal law enforcement, and strengthen public safety across Indian Country.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony. I would be pleased to answer any questions.
* * *
Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II15/20260714/119433/HHRG-119-II15-Wstate-MittelmanD-20260714.pdf
* * *
Chairman Gosar, Chairman Hurd, Ranking Members, and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this written testimony regarding the role that ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs released the following written testimony by David Mittelman, CEO of Othram Inc., Woodlands, Texas, from a July 14, 2026, joint hearing entitled "Innovative Technologies and Initiatives to Tackle the MMIP Crisis in Indian Country." MMIP stands for missing and murdered indigenous persons. * * * Chairman Gosar, Chairman Hurd, Ranking Members, and Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to submit this written testimony regarding the role thatadvances in forensic science can play in addressing the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) crisis.
The disappearance or murder of any individual is a tragedy. When that individual cannot be identified, the consequences extend far beyond the loss of life itself. Families are left without answers. Tribal communities are denied the opportunity to return loved ones home according to their customs and traditions. Law enforcement is often unable to answer the most fundamental question in any investigation: Who was the victim?
For decades, many of these cases remained unresolved not because investigators lacked commitment, nor because evidence was unavailable, but because the scientific tools necessary to identify the unknown simply did not exist. Today, advances in forensic DNA have fundamentally changed what is scientifically possible.
My name is Dr. David Mittelman. I am a molecular biologist by training and have spent nearly thirty years developing genomic technologies for biomedical research and forensic science. I currently serve as Chief Executive Officer of Othram, an accredited forensic laboratory specializing in modern forensic DNA testing. During the past several years, I have had the opportunity to work with federal, state, local, Tribal, and international law enforcement agencies on the identification of unknown human remains and the application of modern DNA technologies to unresolved criminal investigations.
I appreciate the Committee's interest in this topic because I believe forensic science has reached an important point in its evolution. For more than thirty years, forensic DNA has served primarily as a technology for comparison. It has been used to determine whether biological evidence matched someone who was already known. Today, the capabilities of forensic DNA have fundamentally expanded. Modern forensic DNA technologies no longer depend exclusively on a known suspect, a convicted offender, or an immediate family reference sample. They can now generate investigative leads and identify many individuals who previously could not have been identified.
This evolution has profound implications for the MMIP crisis. Many investigations involving missing and unidentified Indigenous persons begin without the investigative leads or known reference samples upon which traditional forensic DNA has historically depended. Modern forensic DNA provides investigators with capabilities that simply did not exist when many of these cases were originally opened.
The purpose of my testimony is to explain how forensic DNA has evolved, why those advances are particularly relevant to the MMIP crisis, and why the United States now has an opportunity to substantially reduce the backlog of unidentified human remains rather than simply managing it.
The Identification Gap
Every homicide investigation begins with a victim. Before investigators can determine why a crime occurred or who may be responsible, they must first determine who the victim was.
A victim's identity is the key that unlocks nearly every subsequent stage of an investigation. Once investigators know who the victim was, they can reconstruct the individual's movements, identify family members and associates, determine where they lived and worked, review missing person reports, examine financial and digital records, and begin understanding the circumstances that led to the person's disappearance or death. Until identity is established, many of those investigative pathways remain unavailable.
For this reason, identifying unknown human remains has always been both a humanitarian responsibility and an investigative necessity. Families deserve answers about what happened to their loved ones.
Tribal communities deserve the opportunity to restore dignity to those who have remained unidentified, sometimes for decades. Law enforcement deserves the opportunity to pursue justice armed with the information that only identification can provide.
These objectives are closely connected. Identification is often viewed as the conclusion of an investigation because it provides a name to an unknown individual. In reality, identification frequently marks the beginning of the next phase of an investigation. Once identity is established, investigators can begin asking questions that previously could not be answered. Where did this person live? When were they last seen? Who knew them? Were they ever reported missing? What circumstances surrounded their disappearance? Those questions often generate the first meaningful investigative leads.
The importance of identification extends beyond humanitarian considerations. In a recent peer-reviewed retrospective analysis1 that my colleagues and I conducted of 477 unidentified human remains cases successfully resolved using modern forensic DNA methods, more than one-quarter of homicide cases were associated with criminal charges, convictions, or the identification of deceased or serial offenders following identification. We also found that approximately seven percent of cases initially classified as having an undetermined manner of death were subsequently determined to be homicides after the victim had been identified. These findings demonstrate that restoring identity provides answers to families while also strengthening public safety by uncovering violent crime and creating new investigative opportunities.
The Evolution of Forensic DNA
To understand why these advances are so significant, it is helpful to understand how forensic DNA has traditionally been used. For more than three decades, forensic DNA has been one of the most effective investigative tools available to law enforcement. DNA profiling and the establishment of the FBI's Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) transformed criminal investigations by making it possible to compare biological evidence recovered from crime scenes against DNA profiles obtained from known individuals. These technologies have identified violent offenders, excluded innocent individuals from suspicion, linked crimes committed across multiple jurisdictions, identified victims of mass disasters, and strengthened confidence in the criminal justice system.
* * *
1 C. Lasyone, B. Budowle, K. Mittelman, & D. Mittelman. (2025) Investigative and policy impacts of forensic genetic genealogy in the identification of human remains. Forensic Science International: Synergy, 11, 100651.
* * *
Traditional forensic DNA is fundamentally a technology for comparison. Biological evidence recovered during an investigation is analyzed and compared against DNA profiles that are already known. Those known profiles may belong to convicted offenders, criminal suspects, missing persons reference samples, or biological relatives who voluntarily provide DNA to assist an investigation. Regardless of the circumstance, the underlying question remains the same: Does this DNA match someone we already know?
When an appropriate comparison sample exists, this approach is highly effective and remains the foundation of modern forensic investigation.
Many investigations, however, begin without any known individual against whom a comparison can be made.
This is particularly true in cases involving unidentified human remains. The individual is often unknown.
Their DNA is generally not present in CODIS because they are victims rather than convicted offenders.
Even when family members are searching for a missing loved one, traditional forensic DNA typically depends upon the availability of a close biological relative, most commonly a parent, child, or full sibling, who has submitted a reference sample for comparison. In many cases, those relatives may not know where to submit DNA, may never have reported the individual missing, may no longer be living, or simply may not exist. Investigators may possess a high-quality DNA profile from the unidentified individual yet still have no appropriate person against whom that profile can be compared. Under these circumstances, even a high-quality DNA profile may not produce an identification because there is simply no one to compare it against.
Forensic DNA Today
Over the past decade, advances in DNA sequencing have fundamentally expanded the capabilities of forensic DNA. Traditional forensic DNA relies on approximately twenty genetic markers to determine whether biological evidence matches a known individual or a close biological relative. Modern forensic DNA examines hundreds of thousands of genetic markers across the genome. This is not simply more information. It is a fundamentally different scale of information, making it possible to identify more distant biological relationships and generate investigative leads that previously did not exist.
For much of the past thirty years, DNA was primarily used to confirm an investigative hypothesis. Today, forensic DNA can often become the starting point of the investigation by identifying previously unknown biological relatives and generating entirely new investigative leads.
Traditional forensic DNA remains indispensable because it provides the most reliable method for confirming identity and supporting criminal prosecutions. Modern forensic DNA extends those capabilities into investigations that historically reached an investigative dead end because no suitable comparison sample existed.
Cases that once had little realistic path toward identification can now be revisited using scientific methods that simply did not exist when those investigations first began.
Why This Matters for the MMIP Crisis
The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis presents many of the investigative challenges that have historically limited the effectiveness of traditional forensic DNA.
Many investigations begin years after an individual disappeared. Human remains may have been exposed to the environment for extended periods, resulting in degraded biological evidence. Cases often span multiple jurisdictions or contain incomplete investigative records. Families may be dispersed across different communities or may be unaware of the procedures for submitting DNA reference samples. In many investigations, there is no suspect, no immediate family reference sample, and no obvious investigative lead.
These are precisely the circumstances in which modern forensic DNA provides capabilities that were previously unavailable.
It is important to recognize that many unresolved MMIP investigations are not the result of inadequate investigative effort. Tribal law enforcement, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the FBI, state and local law enforcement agencies, medical examiners, coroners, and forensic anthropologists have worked these cases with dedication and professionalism, often over many years or decades. The challenge has frequently been that the available scientific tools could not answer the questions investigators most needed answered.
Biological evidence collected years or even decades ago can now be reexamined using methods that provide substantially more information than was previously available. As DNA sequencing technologies have matured and genealogical resources have expanded, evidence that once yielded no investigative leads may now provide a realistic path toward identification.
For families, this means that cases once considered unsolvable may finally produce answers. For investigators, it means that long-standing investigations can be revisited with entirely new scientific capabilities rather than simply reexamining the same investigative theories. For Tribal communities, it means the opportunity to restore names to those who have remained unidentified, return loved ones home, and strengthen the pursuit of justice for victims whose identities have remained unknown.
These outcomes should not be viewed as separate objectives. They are different outcomes of the same investigative process. Identifying an unknown individual restores dignity to families and communities while simultaneously providing investigators with the information necessary to determine whether a crime occurred, identify witnesses, establish timelines, and pursue those responsible.
Operation Spirit Return
Recognizing the expanded capabilities of modern forensic DNA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs established Operation Spirit Return to apply advanced DNA sequencing and forensic genetic genealogy to missing and unidentified American Indian and Alaska Native individuals.
I have had the privilege of participating in this effort through Othram's selection as one of the laboratories supporting the program. While I cannot speak on behalf of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, I believe Operation Spirit Return reflects an important recognition that advances in forensic science have fundamentally changed what is now possible in long-unsolved investigations.
Operation Spirit Return is already demonstrating the practical impact of these capabilities. The following examples illustrate the kinds of cases that historically had little or no practical path toward identification using the forensic methods available at the time. They represent only a small sample of the individuals who have now been identified through the program.
* Michelle Elbow Shield (South Dakota) - Michelle's remains remained unidentified because investigators had no practical way to connect her to surviving relatives through traditional forensic methods. Modern forensic DNA established those distant relative connections and ultimately restored her identity.
* Glenn Thomas Tate Jr. (Sacaton, Arizona) - Only partial skeletal remains were recovered from a remote desert location, leaving investigators with little evidence from which to establish identity despite extensive investigation. Modern forensic DNA provided the viable investigative path forward.
* Martha Bassett (Will County, Illinois) - Martha remained unidentified for more than five decades because no investigative leads connected her remains to a missing person. Modern forensic DNA generated those leads and ultimately restored her identity.
* Blaine Has Tricks (Marysville, Washington) - Blaine's remains had been severely fragmented and disposed of in a landfill. He had never been reported missing, leaving investigators without context or investigative leads. Modern forensic DNA made identification possible despite those extraordinary circumstances.
Although each investigation was unique, they shared a common characteristic. The evidence to solve the case was always there, but the agencies lacked the resources and new technology to make the case solvable. Modern forensic DNA provided those leads, allowing these investigations to move forward after years, and in some cases decades, without meaningful progress.
The impact extends beyond restoring names to the unknown. In some investigations, establishing identity provides the foundation necessary to identify offenders and bring criminal cases to resolution.
For example, the identification of Teedeenae "Jackson" Yearby provided investigators with a critical connection needed to identify his remains and advance a homicide investigation that ultimately resulted in a guilty plea from the assailant.
Equally important, the program recognizes that technology alone is not sufficient. Successful human identification depends upon collaboration among Tribal Nations, investigators, families, medical examiners and coroners, forensic anthropologists, forensic laboratories, prosecutors, victim advocates, and many others. Modern forensic DNA provides powerful new capabilities, but those capabilities are most effective when integrated into multidisciplinary investigations built upon collaboration, transparency, and respect for Tribal sovereignty.
Operation Spirit Return demonstrates what is possible when modern forensic DNA is applied to long-unsolved investigations. Continued support offers the opportunity to move beyond resolving individual cases toward systematically reducing the backlog of unidentified American Indian and Alaska Native individuals. It also establishes the investigative infrastructure, scientific expertise, and collaborative partnerships necessary to ensure that future cases can be resolved more quickly, reducing the burden on Tribal communities and law enforcement while increasing opportunities to identify offenders and provide answers to families.
Operation Spirit Return is therefore more than the application of a new laboratory method. It represents the practical implementation of a scientific capability that did not exist when many of these investigations began. It demonstrates how advances in forensic science can be integrated into existing investigative systems to produce meaningful outcomes for families, Tribal communities, and law enforcement.
The Opportunity Before Us
For decades, the national discussion surrounding unidentified human remains has focused on managing a backlog that could not realistically be eliminated using the scientific tools available at the time. Every successful identification represented an important achievement, but there was broad recognition that many cases would likely remain unresolved because investigators simply lacked the scientific capability to identify individuals when no investigative lead or appropriate family reference sample existed.
Today, advances in forensic DNA require that assumption to be reconsidered. Modern forensic DNA has fundamentally expanded what is scientifically possible. Rather than depending exclusively on a known suspect, a convicted offender, or an immediate family reference sample, investigators can now generate entirely new investigative leads from biological evidence itself. While no scientific method will solve every case, the capabilities available today are substantially different from those that existed when many unidentified human remains investigations began.
For the first time, the United States has the scientific capability to systematically reduce the national backlog of unidentified human remains rather than simply managing it.
That opportunity has particular importance for Indian Country. Every successful identification returns a loved one to a family, restores dignity to Tribal communities, reduces the investigative burden carried by Tribal and federal law enforcement, and, in some cases, provides the information necessary to identify violent offenders who otherwise might never be discovered.
The principal challenge is no longer scientific capability. The principal challenge is deployment.
The United States has already invested for decades in developing forensic DNA, building forensic laboratories, establishing CODIS, supporting medical examiner systems, and creating national programs for missing and unidentified persons. Advances in forensic DNA now create an opportunity to realize a far greater return on those investments by applying capabilities that did not previously exist.
The question before us is therefore not whether these technologies work. The scientific literature, operational experience, and growing number of successful investigations have already demonstrated that they do. The question is whether these capabilities will be deployed broadly enough to fundamentally change the trajectory of unidentified human remains investigations across the United States, including throughout Indian Country.
Recommendations
In light of these advances, I respectfully offer three recommendations for the Committee's consideration.
First, ensure that modern forensic DNA capabilities are available to Tribal Nations and the investigators serving Indian Country, regardless of geography or local resources.
Second, shift the national objective from managing the backlog of unidentified human remains to systematically reducing it. The scientific capability to make substantial progress now exists. Public policy should reflect that opportunity.
Third, continue supporting the scientific standards, accreditation, validation, and multidisciplinary partnerships that have made forensic DNA one of the most trusted forms of scientific evidence in the criminal justice system. Maintaining those standards will ensure that these expanded capabilities continue to earn the confidence of investigators, courts, Tribal Nations, and the public.
Conclusion
After nearly three decades working in genomics, I have never been more optimistic about our ability to restore names to the unknown.
For the first time, the United States has the scientific capability to systematically reduce the national backlog of unidentified human remains rather than simply managing it. This represents a fundamental shift from accepting a persistent backlog as inevitable to treating it as a solvable national challenge.
The opportunity before us is to ensure these capabilities are deployed at the scale necessary to return more loved ones to their families, reduce the burden on Tribal and federal law enforcement, and strengthen public safety across Indian Country.
Thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony. I would be pleased to answer any questions.
* * *
Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II15/20260714/119433/HHRG-119-II15-Wstate-MittelmanD-20260714.pdf
Independent Women Senior Policy & Legal Analyst Stepman Testifies Before House Oversight & Government Reform Committee
WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses released the following written testimony by Inez Feltscher Stepman, senior policy and legal analyst with Independent Women, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Combating DEI in American Institutions." DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
* * *
Chairman, Ranking Member, and Distinguished Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
I currently serve as Senior Policy and Legal Analyst ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses released the following written testimony by Inez Feltscher Stepman, senior policy and legal analyst with Independent Women, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Combating DEI in American Institutions." DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. * * * Chairman, Ranking Member, and Distinguished Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I currently serve as Senior Policy and Legal Analystwith Independent Women and Independent Women's Law Center. For almost 30 years, Independent Women broadens support for better policies to change the world. Independent Women's Law Center supports that mission by advocating for individual liberty, equal opportunity, and respect for the constitutional order.
Today's subject matter is critical for all three.
When I came to testify on this issue in 2024, I identified three major factors barring the promise of colorblind meritocracy and equality under the law from being real in the United States.
First, the enforcement of anti-discrimination law in admissions and the workplace had become hypersensitive to mere statistical disparities in outcomes and alleged microaggressions while looking the other way as universities and companies announced--and then followed up on--their intention to actively discriminate in favor of preferred racial categories and against disfavored ones.
Second, and related, the legal doctrine of "disparate impact"--imagining "systemic racism" as a God of the gaps, to be assumed anytime outcomes don't come out perfectly racially balanced, even in the face of total lack of evidence of animus--had become baked into our legal system in a variety of ways. Disparate impact is--or optimistically, was--the legal enforcement arm of the DEI empire.
Third, the Biden administration, building on groundwork from President Obama, moved to redefine the basic word used in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (hereafter, CRA), "sex," which up until that point from time immemorial had meant biological sex, to include so-called "gender identity," as declared by the individual, and used that false definition to transform all anti-discrimination law in the United States without a single legislative vote.
As I sit here before you today, I'm pleased to be able to say that enormous progress on each one of these fronts has been made by the Trump administration. In no era of my lifetime have more strides been made towards the American ideal of being judged by merit rather than immutable characteristics.
But this laudable progress is fragile. Despite being broadly popular even among Democrats in deep blue states, as shown even by popular vote in California,1 equality under the law and colorblind meritocracy need codifying from this body and protection from the highest court.
Discrimination is Still Illegal if It's for "Diversity" Purposes
The main purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to bar discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, and religion from all important (small-p) public forums in American life. Its promise was that we would be judged by our merit and qualifications, whether we were applying for acceptance to a university or scholarship program, or for a job or promotion in the workplace.
For decades, however, we have failed to apply this simple and just principle, with many insisting that if discrimination was being used in order to produce a more "equitable" or "diverse" outcome, that made it somehow permissible or even morally necessary. But limiting Americans' opportunities by the color of their skin or other immutable characteristics is wrong regardless of the rationale. Further, it's illegal and unconstitutional.
The Trump administration has made great strides towards the colorblind ideal promised both by the CRA and the Constitution, perhaps more than have been made in my lifetime, or any time since the immediate aftermath of the 1964 Act's passage.
Immediately upon assent to the office for a second term, President Trump issued two executive orders tackling the problem of "woke discrimination" head-on. EO 141732 prohibited discriminatory DEI practices within the federal government, and EO 141513 tasked all agencies with rooting those same practices out in private institutions.
The promises of the president's EOs have taken time and a lot of hard legal and bureaucratic work across disparate agencies to come to fruition, but now across different agencies, this ideal--that it's illegal to use characteristics like race and sex to make important decisions about people's lives and work--is being shaped in real time.
Rooting Out Illegal Discrimination in Universities
For decades, universities have been the front lines for implementing the pernicious idea that if race and sex discrimination is being done for diversity, equity, and inclusion purposes, it's not only permissible but required. In the admissions context, this idea was given some limited purchase by the Supreme Court, which, prior to 2023, had okayed the soft discrimination embodied in affirmative action as a way to right past wrongs.
After Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard in 2023,4 however, that exception to equality under the law was removed. And yet in defiance of both the law and general principles of colorblind meritocracy, universities have continued to behave as though some forms of discrimination are acceptable. SFFA provides a direct Supreme Court doctrinal basis for disallowing affirmative action in admissions, a carveout from Constitutional requirements of equal protection that was always alleged to be temporary, but in practice greenlighted blatant discrimination in admissions against white and Asian applicants. As employers governed under Title VII of the CRA, universities were never permitted to take race into account for job-related decisions, despite a long and public track record of doing so.
The previous administration, like prior Democratic administrations, encouraged and even demanded that universities illegally discriminate. This administration, by contrast, has shown through word and action it will not tolerate discrimination.
The current administration has relied mostly on three provisions of the CRA, as well as the SFFA case, to tackle three different fronts of university policy.
First, Title VII, which forbids discrimination in hiring, firing, and promotion, has been aimed at discriminatory hiring among faculty and administrators, as well as "diversicrat" administrative bodies like DEI offices. Second, Title IX has been used to go after the redefinition of sex universities have used to force women to accept males in their sports, locker rooms, bathrooms, and dormitories. And finally, Title VI activates the universities' legal duties to provide a safe and non-discriminatory environment for students on campus, a guarantee universities have failed to deliver to Jewish students in the face of lawless protests initiated by pro-Palestine groups last summer.
(It is important to note that mere speech, no matter how ugly, does not mean a Title VI violation has taken place. Rather, the statute concerns the university's duty to prevent action: harassment, preventing egress across the quad, denial of the school's opportunities to students because of their Jewish background.)
In February 2025, the Trump administration's Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education (OCR) published a Dear Colleague Letter that warned universities of the consequences of racial discrimination in admissions, programs, and activities, as well as including a warning about loss of funding related to violations under Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965./5
The Trump administration has used these three titles of the CRA to hold universities accountable for the illegal discrimination they've been practicing for decades, as well as to validly withhold grants and other funding, and to secure settlements from universities not in compliance.
Additionally, reexamination of accreditation requirements and bodies has provided the Trump administration with another tool to sanction universities in violation of the law. The president issued Executive Order 14279 directing the Department of Education to look into terminating accreditation for universities that continue to engage in illegal discriminatory conduct,6 and the administration has encouraged alternative accreditors to enter the market for the first time in decades.7
These investigations, lawsuits, and settlements have borne fruit. Columbia University, for example, has been forced to settle for $200 million--and $21 million more in a separate Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) settlement. More importantly than money, the settlement requires Columbia to demonstrate to the federal government at regular intervals, through the disclosure of data, that it is racially discriminating neither in its admissions nor its employment policies.
Most recently, in June, the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division issued a finding that the University of California, Davis School of Medicine was impermissibly using race in its admissions process.8
Additional Civil Rights investigations have been opened against UCLA, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, New York University, Northwestern University, and the University of Michigan, and the EEOC is investigating anti-white discrimination against employees at George Mason.
Further details of the administration's work on Title IX are available in the section about the definition of sex.
Under Trump's day two EO, "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity," agencies must identify at least nine compliance investigations into institutions with endowments over $1 billion, so these investigations are likely to continue going forward.
Universities will undoubtedly continue to fight tooth and nail against the enforcement of anti-discrimination law, in ways both overt and covert. For example, some campuses have taken to renaming DEI offices and positions in an attempt to shield them from public scrutiny and legal sanction. It will take more than a year and a half of enforcement to wrest higher education away from its illegal and self-destructive commitment to discrimination against the Left's disfavored groups. Nevertheless, a year and a half of aggressive enforcement is a good start.
An End to Acceptance of "Diversity" Discrimination in the Workplace
Under the Trump administration, the EEOC has no longer been ignoring discrimination against some disfavored racial groups, like whites, males, and Asians, in corporate America. In what is likely the first case of many, the agency has rolled out a lawsuit against The New York Times for failing to promote a well-qualified white male employee because of the color of his skin.9 By contrast to many of the cases brought under the Biden administration, the New York Times case shows exactly the kind of racially motivated reasoning in workplace decisions Civil Rights law is meant to prevent. Under this administration, both the letter and the spirit of Title VII will be followed; there will be "no diversity exception"--Chairwoman Andrea Lucas' words--to the colorblind meritocracy required by the law.10
Such examples of blatant and publicly trumpeted discrimination are not difficult to find in America's corporate sector, and the Trump administration is likely to find a target-rich environment for enforcement. In 2020, an excess of two dozen senior business leaders, in sectors as diverse as banking, consulting, and tech, promised point-blank to hire a quota of 100,000 non-white workers for their companies over the coming decade. Other corporations made equally explicit promises to discriminate, publicly pledging themselves to a 30% black and Latino new hire quota (Adidas), or to fill 30% of leadership positions with "underrepresented groups" (Google). Other companies passed the diversity mandates not only onto themselves but their business partners; Microsoft, for example, required all its suppliers to provide "diversity disclosures" so they could be punished for insufficient racial quota-filling.11
One imagines that The New York Times is just the first entity among many to discover that the law does not actually permit--let alone require--them to pass over qualified white males for positions in the name of DEI.
The main purpose of Title IX, Title VII, and other similar provisions of law is to stop discrimination against people for their race, sex, national origin, or religion. For decades now, the government has pursued companies for the most neutral and fair of decision-making processes and for ever-smaller "offenses" in one direction, while turning a blind eye towards or actively demanding that institutions discriminate against other, disfavored groups. This is not just, and neither is it in the plain text of the law.
Disparate Impact Cannot Coexist with True Equality
Since its invention in the 1971 case Griggs v. Duke Power Co.,12 the logic behind "disparate impact liability" has been an affront to real equality and meritocracy. Because it imagines that one can work backwards from disparate results to discriminatory conduct, as University of San Diego School of Law Professor Gail Heriot has written, this interpretation of Title VII makes everything--any criteria for hiring whatsoever--presumptively illegal.13
This is, of course, because the baseline of perfect population-proportional outcomes by race, sex, national origin, and religion exists nowhere in the real world. Population-level differences exist across all four characteristics on every test, qualification, educational credential, and skill an employer could possibly seek or require.
The Griggs court imagined that they were creating a mechanism for getting at sneaky, unspoken discrimination, akin to the polling place literacy tests of the Jim Crow South. Instead, disparate impact liability has created a situation in which the EEOC can pick and choose between employers and hiring schemes to select the next victim, and worse, where employers are encouraged to actively discriminate against "majority" applicants in pursuit of a more "diverse" leadership brochure photo to show to the government.
Under the Biden administration, for example, the EEOC brought a lawsuit against the gas station chain Sheetz for a hiring process that screened out certain types of felons.14 Because black and Native American applicants were more likely to have those felonies on their records, the EEOC claimed that under disparate impact liability, the company was violating Title VII, even though at no point did the agency ever even allege that Sheetz was trying to discriminate against particular backgrounds. The fact that more applicants of certain races were screened out was enough for the lawsuit.
Curiously, although requiring a bachelor's degree for, say, an entry-level receptionist job also leads to disproportionate outcomes in that black and Hispanic applicants are less likely to have a degree, and white and Asian applicants more likely, using that particular requirement to hire has never led to a lawsuit from the EEOC. I'll leave it to the members of this Task Force to consider why that might be.
Even worse than the arbitrary nature of the EEOC's previous enforcement, however, is the encouragement given to employers to discriminate on the basis of race to achieve more "equitable" results. This is exactly the opposite of the intent of Title VII, which is to discourage discrimination on the basis of race.
In the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion, past administrations have trashed the most important guarantee of the Civil Rights era and incentivized employers to discriminate against white, male, Asian, and other disfavored groups in order to try to force a predetermined racial outcome around the boardroom. The extent of this discrimination has been, without exaggeration, an example of actual systemic racism in the United States, one that has left untold young Americans with real life-altering losses and often resentment against a system that has not rewarded them commensurate with their talents in a free competition.15
None of this is blessed or intended by the plain language of Title VII, nor can this interpretation be found in its legislative history or the public debate surrounding its passage. To the contrary, the Act's Senate co-managers wrote very clearly against such an interpretation in a memorandum to their colleagues: "There is no requirement in [T]itle VII that employers abandon bona fide qualification tests where, because of differences in background and education, members of some groups are able to perform better ... than members of other groups."16
Yet that's exactly what, under the Biden administration and previous Democratic administrations (and even some Republican ones), Title VII enforcement has become. Sacrificed for cheap ideological purposes was the actual intent of the law, the colorblind Constitution, and real equality.
All that has changed under the Trump administration, most recently with a critically important opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel, which declared this poisonous doctrine not only reversed but unconstitutional. According to the OLC, disparate impact liability "fosters the very discrimination its guidelines seek to address." Just so.
This opinion will provide the basis for future defendants like Sheetz to fight back against the abuse of the law from the EEOC, as showing mere "business necessity" will be enough to push the burden back to the plaintiff to show how a neutral hiring criterion constitutes actual discrimination, with the opinion noting explicitly that requirements such as background checks, aptitude tests, and SAT scores are "presumptively job-related."17
Furthermore, this opinion will likely generate the lawsuits necessary to give the Supreme Court an opportunity to fully rule in favor of the colorblind Constitution and the original purpose of the Civil Rights Act.
Restoring the Definition of Sex and Harassment
Title VII protects women from sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sex. While these guarantees have been unevenly enforced, and definitions stretched, for decades, under the previous administration the EEOC took redefinition to the next level.
The Commission's regulatory guidance from April 2024 (now withdrawn) made it "harassment" under Title VII to maintain basic privacy for female employees in sensitive spaces, such as restrooms, showers, and locker rooms. The 2024 guidance also infringed upon Americans' free speech and religious liberty rights in the workplace by claiming that "repeated and intentional" use of biologically correct, but unpreferred, pronouns is "harassment."18
As the preeminent legal organization dedicated to preserving the common sense, biological definition of sex, Independent Women's Law Center received inquiries from women in 2024 who had already been subjected to the results of this confusion.
As I testified in 2024:
"One woman who contacted us works with chemicals in an Ohio factory, the handling of which necessitates employees shower after work every day. The employer allowed a male, with full male anatomy, to shower with the women on the basis of proclaimed gender identity. When female employees complained about this obviously uncomfortable situation, the male was given a shower curtain, leaving the women in an intimate space, naked, with a man as a condition of their employment.
Another woman who contacted our Law Center tours with major concerts as part of her job, often in venues with group showers, until now separated by sex. Again, a man, with fully intact male genitals, was "accommodated" with access to the female showers. Even when the female employees tried to time their showers to avoid him, the male employee waited for them in order to shower alongside them. Unbelievably, in the age of microaggressions and EEOC-encouraged firings over mild jokes or offhand remarks blown up into harassment, allowing a man to hang out, waiting to watch his female coworkers shower is actually required, not prohibited, by the EEOC.
These are just two examples of situations where the privacy, safety, and comfort of women in the workplace have been sacrificed on the altar of gender identity politics required nowhere in the plain language of Title VII. The EEOC guidance explicitly states that employers who do not provide access to single-sex spaces on the basis of gender identity will be in violation of Title VII, forcing women to use the restroom, pump breast milk, and in some cases change or shower with male colleagues as a condition of employment...
The EEOC does not have the power to rewrite the protected categories of Title VII, and the EEOC's invented definitions of the word "sex" in the statute are creating exactly the kind of workplace situations that subject female employees to discrimination and harassment that the EEOC actually is empowered to prevent. If a male employee repeatedly showing his penis to unwilling female coworkers does not qualify as sexual harassment under Title VII, it's honestly hard to see what workplace behavior would."19
Until President Trump came into office, instead of doing their job punishing harassment and discrimination on the basis of sex, the EEOC was actively engaged in an attempt to force employers to do both.
The Trump administration, by contrast, moved quickly and decisively to end the farce of rewriting anti-discrimination law to include self-proclaimed gender identity, and to restore the biological definition of sex to federal law. The president signed an Executive Order on day one, "Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government."20
In it, the president declared:
"It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality, and the following definitions shall govern all Executive interpretation of and application of Federal law and administration policy."
But the Trump administration has not been content merely to restore the status quo ante for all of human civilization with regard to the definition of sex. The administration has also moved to use Title IX to prevent schools from forcing women to surrender their privacy, dignity, and opportunities in order to admit males who identify as female to single-sex spaces. Title IX bars educational institutions receiving federal funding from discriminating on the basis of sex or permitting an environment of harassment so extreme that female students are functionally barred from fully accessing their educational opportunities, including sports opportunities. As with Title VII, while this provision has been used by past administrations to demand all kinds of bogus "equality" claims, it's hard to imagine the plain text could mean anything if it doesn't cover forcing young student athletes to compete with and change alongside men, with male genitalia, as a condition for participation.
Just a few months after taking office, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened a Title IX investigation into the University of Pennsylvania on exactly that basis, citing the president's Executive Order protecting women's sports and the biological definition of sex. By July of 2025, the University had surrendered and entered into a resolution agreement obligating it to prohibit males in women's sports going forward, restore titles and records to the women robbed of them, and issue letters of apology to females affected.21
The administration has targeted for further action some K-12 schools and entire states (California and Maine) for their policies in this regard.
What Still Needs to Be Done
The Trump administration has done an admirable job on the executive enforcement side, putting real equality under the law into action. But they're in office until 2028. How enduring are these victories and how likely are they to endure?
First, Congress (respectfully) needs to get back in action and make it clear that the law does not bless discrimination for special political purposes. That means not only codifying the Trump administration's prohibition on disparate impact liability and interpretations of Title IX and Title VII, but also reopening some of the changes made to the CRA in 1991.
Before the 1991 revisions, the only thing a complainant stood to gain by alleging invidious discrimination or a hostile work environment was what he or she had lost: an injunction requiring the employer to hire or grant a promotion, and lost wages from the moment the act of discrimination took place. Not only do these remedies make sense, they ensured that the claims that would be brought to the EEOC would be of at least a moderately serious nature, serious enough to lose a job over.
Since the 1990s, the originally somewhat loose definition of offense and harassment has combined with new and massive incentives for any disgruntled employee, and the recognition of the cumulative nature of multiple small incidents in the workplace to create some very unproductive incentives in these disputes. Too often, a disgruntled employee needs only to allege a series of "microaggressions" to trigger a settlement from the employer.
Not only does this clog up the agency and courts with frivolous cases, it has made employers extremely sensitive to any type of perceived offense, as judged by the most sensitive employee in the office. It's not an exaggeration to say that the entire culture of then-called "political correctness" that grew into what we call "woke" is in large part the result of employer fear of lawsuit because of these revisions to the law. In order to cover their butts, employers have had to get very picky about what employees joke about and reference in the workplace. A culture that stifles free exchange of ideas and punishes dissent is not conducive to a dynamic private sector or a broader ethos of free speech.
In addition to Congress, the courts have a huge role to play here. As Chief Justice John Roberts memorably wrote in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, all the way back in 2007, "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."22
In cases since, like SFFA23 and even a recent case regarding redrawing district lines,24 this Supreme Court has repeatedly signaled its allegiance to the principle that racial discrimination is not just forbidden by federal law, but by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Ultimately, the buck stops with the Supreme Court to call a halt to all this nonsense and enforce that simple mandate: Our Constitution is colorblind. There is no "diversity exception" to this just principle of our law. Ultimately, that means narrowing or overturning Griggs, correcting or striking down those parts of the law or regulatory interpretation that offend that basic equality principle. It means ensuring that the plain meanings of basic words like "sex" are not twisted to gut protections Congress meant to enshrine.
As Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Jeremy Carl has written, "We can either have equal civil rights for every American, or we can abandon the concept entirely. There is no third way."25 We can either have civil rights and just treatment for every American, regardless of sex, race, national origin, or religion, or we can have a legalized racial hierarchy system and Balkanized, resentful politics that puts us at each other's throats.
Americans of all political stripes, from red Florida to blue California, agree that we ought to be judged by the content of our character and what we have to offer on the basis of merit, whether we seek to offer that merit to an admissions committee, an employer, or as a contractor working with the federal government.
The Trump administration is, for the first time in decades, enforcing the Civil Rights Act and the Constitution equally, for all Americans. Now, it's up to Congress and the Supreme Court to make sure that principle continues to flourish.
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Footnotes:
1 In 2020, at the height of racial hysteria, California Proposition 16, an attempt to repeal Proposition 209 which bars discrimination and preferential treatment in public institutions on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin, was nevertheless defeated soundly by nearly 60% to 40. See: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Proposition_209_Affirmative_Action_Amendment_(20 20).
2 Exec. Order No. 14,173, 90 Fed. Reg. 8633 (Jan. 31, 2025). ("Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity")
3 Exec. Order No. 14,151, 90 Fed. Reg. 8339 (Jan. 29, 2025). ("Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing")
4 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).
5 U.S. Dep't of Educ., Office for Civil Rights, Dear Colleague Letter: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in Light of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (Feb. 14, 2025), https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-sffa-v-harvard-109506.pdf.
6 Exec. Order No. 14,279, 90 Fed. Reg. 17,529 (Apr. 28, 2025). ("Reforming Accreditation To Strengthen Higher Education").
7 Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE).
8 Press Release, U.S. Dep't of Just., Justice Department Finds University of California Davis Medical School Discriminates Based on Race in Admissions (June 10, 2026), https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-university-california-davis-medical-school-discriminatesbased-race-admissions.
9 Press Release, U.S. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm'n, EEOC Sues The New York Times for DEI-Related Race and Sex Discrimination (May 5, 2026), https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-sues-new-york-times-dei-related-race-and-sex-discrimination.
10 Id.
11 Hearing Before the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 118th Cong. (2023), https://www.congress.gov/118/chrg/CHRG-118hhrg56320/CHRG-118hhrg56320.pdf.
12 Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971).
13 Gail L. Heriot, Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal, 14 N.Y.U. J.L. & Liberty 1 (2020).
14 Complaint, U.S. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm'n v. Sheetz, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-01123 (D. Md. Apr. 17, 2024).
15 Jacob Savage, The Lost Generation, Compact (Dec. 15, 2025), https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-lost-generation/.
16 Gail Heriot, Disparate Impact and the Soft Coercion of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Procedures, SCOTUSblog (Feb. 23, 2010), https://www.scotusblog.com/2010/02/disparate-impact-and-the-soft-coercion-of-the-uniform-guidelines-on-empl oyee-procedures/.
17 Constitutionality of Disparate-Impact Liability Under Title VII, 49 Op. O.L.C. ___ (June 9, 2026), https://www.justice.gov/olc/media/1444871/dl
18 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, April 29, 2024.
19 Hearing Before the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 118th Cong. (2023), https://www.congress.gov/118/chrg/CHRG-118hhrg56320/CHRG-118hhrg56320.pdf.
20 Exec. Order No. 14,168, 90 Fed. Reg. 8615 (Jan. 30, 2025). ("Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government").
21 U.S. Dep't of Educ., U.S. Department of Education Announces the University of Pennsylvania Has Entered into a Resolution Agreement to Resolve its Title IX Violations (July 1, 2025), https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-announces-university-of-pennsylvania -has-entered-resolution-agreement-resolve-its-title-ix-violations.
22 Parents Involved in Cmty. Schs. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007).
23 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).
24 Allen v. Milligan, 599 U.S. 1 (2023).
25 Jeremy Carl, Saving Civil Rights from Itself, The Am. Mind (June 23, 2026), https://americanmind.org/salvo/saving-civil-rights-from-itself/.
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Original text here: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Stepman-Written-Testimony.pdf
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Chairman, Ranking Member, and Distinguished Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today.
I currently serve as Senior Policy and Legal Analyst ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses released the following written testimony by Inez Feltscher Stepman, senior policy and legal analyst with Independent Women, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Combating DEI in American Institutions." DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. * * * Chairman, Ranking Member, and Distinguished Members of the Committee: Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. I currently serve as Senior Policy and Legal Analystwith Independent Women and Independent Women's Law Center. For almost 30 years, Independent Women broadens support for better policies to change the world. Independent Women's Law Center supports that mission by advocating for individual liberty, equal opportunity, and respect for the constitutional order.
Today's subject matter is critical for all three.
When I came to testify on this issue in 2024, I identified three major factors barring the promise of colorblind meritocracy and equality under the law from being real in the United States.
First, the enforcement of anti-discrimination law in admissions and the workplace had become hypersensitive to mere statistical disparities in outcomes and alleged microaggressions while looking the other way as universities and companies announced--and then followed up on--their intention to actively discriminate in favor of preferred racial categories and against disfavored ones.
Second, and related, the legal doctrine of "disparate impact"--imagining "systemic racism" as a God of the gaps, to be assumed anytime outcomes don't come out perfectly racially balanced, even in the face of total lack of evidence of animus--had become baked into our legal system in a variety of ways. Disparate impact is--or optimistically, was--the legal enforcement arm of the DEI empire.
Third, the Biden administration, building on groundwork from President Obama, moved to redefine the basic word used in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (hereafter, CRA), "sex," which up until that point from time immemorial had meant biological sex, to include so-called "gender identity," as declared by the individual, and used that false definition to transform all anti-discrimination law in the United States without a single legislative vote.
As I sit here before you today, I'm pleased to be able to say that enormous progress on each one of these fronts has been made by the Trump administration. In no era of my lifetime have more strides been made towards the American ideal of being judged by merit rather than immutable characteristics.
But this laudable progress is fragile. Despite being broadly popular even among Democrats in deep blue states, as shown even by popular vote in California,1 equality under the law and colorblind meritocracy need codifying from this body and protection from the highest court.
Discrimination is Still Illegal if It's for "Diversity" Purposes
The main purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to bar discrimination on the basis of race, sex, national origin, and religion from all important (small-p) public forums in American life. Its promise was that we would be judged by our merit and qualifications, whether we were applying for acceptance to a university or scholarship program, or for a job or promotion in the workplace.
For decades, however, we have failed to apply this simple and just principle, with many insisting that if discrimination was being used in order to produce a more "equitable" or "diverse" outcome, that made it somehow permissible or even morally necessary. But limiting Americans' opportunities by the color of their skin or other immutable characteristics is wrong regardless of the rationale. Further, it's illegal and unconstitutional.
The Trump administration has made great strides towards the colorblind ideal promised both by the CRA and the Constitution, perhaps more than have been made in my lifetime, or any time since the immediate aftermath of the 1964 Act's passage.
Immediately upon assent to the office for a second term, President Trump issued two executive orders tackling the problem of "woke discrimination" head-on. EO 141732 prohibited discriminatory DEI practices within the federal government, and EO 141513 tasked all agencies with rooting those same practices out in private institutions.
The promises of the president's EOs have taken time and a lot of hard legal and bureaucratic work across disparate agencies to come to fruition, but now across different agencies, this ideal--that it's illegal to use characteristics like race and sex to make important decisions about people's lives and work--is being shaped in real time.
Rooting Out Illegal Discrimination in Universities
For decades, universities have been the front lines for implementing the pernicious idea that if race and sex discrimination is being done for diversity, equity, and inclusion purposes, it's not only permissible but required. In the admissions context, this idea was given some limited purchase by the Supreme Court, which, prior to 2023, had okayed the soft discrimination embodied in affirmative action as a way to right past wrongs.
After Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard in 2023,4 however, that exception to equality under the law was removed. And yet in defiance of both the law and general principles of colorblind meritocracy, universities have continued to behave as though some forms of discrimination are acceptable. SFFA provides a direct Supreme Court doctrinal basis for disallowing affirmative action in admissions, a carveout from Constitutional requirements of equal protection that was always alleged to be temporary, but in practice greenlighted blatant discrimination in admissions against white and Asian applicants. As employers governed under Title VII of the CRA, universities were never permitted to take race into account for job-related decisions, despite a long and public track record of doing so.
The previous administration, like prior Democratic administrations, encouraged and even demanded that universities illegally discriminate. This administration, by contrast, has shown through word and action it will not tolerate discrimination.
The current administration has relied mostly on three provisions of the CRA, as well as the SFFA case, to tackle three different fronts of university policy.
First, Title VII, which forbids discrimination in hiring, firing, and promotion, has been aimed at discriminatory hiring among faculty and administrators, as well as "diversicrat" administrative bodies like DEI offices. Second, Title IX has been used to go after the redefinition of sex universities have used to force women to accept males in their sports, locker rooms, bathrooms, and dormitories. And finally, Title VI activates the universities' legal duties to provide a safe and non-discriminatory environment for students on campus, a guarantee universities have failed to deliver to Jewish students in the face of lawless protests initiated by pro-Palestine groups last summer.
(It is important to note that mere speech, no matter how ugly, does not mean a Title VI violation has taken place. Rather, the statute concerns the university's duty to prevent action: harassment, preventing egress across the quad, denial of the school's opportunities to students because of their Jewish background.)
In February 2025, the Trump administration's Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education (OCR) published a Dear Colleague Letter that warned universities of the consequences of racial discrimination in admissions, programs, and activities, as well as including a warning about loss of funding related to violations under Title VI of the Higher Education Act of 1965./5
The Trump administration has used these three titles of the CRA to hold universities accountable for the illegal discrimination they've been practicing for decades, as well as to validly withhold grants and other funding, and to secure settlements from universities not in compliance.
Additionally, reexamination of accreditation requirements and bodies has provided the Trump administration with another tool to sanction universities in violation of the law. The president issued Executive Order 14279 directing the Department of Education to look into terminating accreditation for universities that continue to engage in illegal discriminatory conduct,6 and the administration has encouraged alternative accreditors to enter the market for the first time in decades.7
These investigations, lawsuits, and settlements have borne fruit. Columbia University, for example, has been forced to settle for $200 million--and $21 million more in a separate Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) settlement. More importantly than money, the settlement requires Columbia to demonstrate to the federal government at regular intervals, through the disclosure of data, that it is racially discriminating neither in its admissions nor its employment policies.
Most recently, in June, the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division issued a finding that the University of California, Davis School of Medicine was impermissibly using race in its admissions process.8
Additional Civil Rights investigations have been opened against UCLA, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, New York University, Northwestern University, and the University of Michigan, and the EEOC is investigating anti-white discrimination against employees at George Mason.
Further details of the administration's work on Title IX are available in the section about the definition of sex.
Under Trump's day two EO, "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity," agencies must identify at least nine compliance investigations into institutions with endowments over $1 billion, so these investigations are likely to continue going forward.
Universities will undoubtedly continue to fight tooth and nail against the enforcement of anti-discrimination law, in ways both overt and covert. For example, some campuses have taken to renaming DEI offices and positions in an attempt to shield them from public scrutiny and legal sanction. It will take more than a year and a half of enforcement to wrest higher education away from its illegal and self-destructive commitment to discrimination against the Left's disfavored groups. Nevertheless, a year and a half of aggressive enforcement is a good start.
An End to Acceptance of "Diversity" Discrimination in the Workplace
Under the Trump administration, the EEOC has no longer been ignoring discrimination against some disfavored racial groups, like whites, males, and Asians, in corporate America. In what is likely the first case of many, the agency has rolled out a lawsuit against The New York Times for failing to promote a well-qualified white male employee because of the color of his skin.9 By contrast to many of the cases brought under the Biden administration, the New York Times case shows exactly the kind of racially motivated reasoning in workplace decisions Civil Rights law is meant to prevent. Under this administration, both the letter and the spirit of Title VII will be followed; there will be "no diversity exception"--Chairwoman Andrea Lucas' words--to the colorblind meritocracy required by the law.10
Such examples of blatant and publicly trumpeted discrimination are not difficult to find in America's corporate sector, and the Trump administration is likely to find a target-rich environment for enforcement. In 2020, an excess of two dozen senior business leaders, in sectors as diverse as banking, consulting, and tech, promised point-blank to hire a quota of 100,000 non-white workers for their companies over the coming decade. Other corporations made equally explicit promises to discriminate, publicly pledging themselves to a 30% black and Latino new hire quota (Adidas), or to fill 30% of leadership positions with "underrepresented groups" (Google). Other companies passed the diversity mandates not only onto themselves but their business partners; Microsoft, for example, required all its suppliers to provide "diversity disclosures" so they could be punished for insufficient racial quota-filling.11
One imagines that The New York Times is just the first entity among many to discover that the law does not actually permit--let alone require--them to pass over qualified white males for positions in the name of DEI.
The main purpose of Title IX, Title VII, and other similar provisions of law is to stop discrimination against people for their race, sex, national origin, or religion. For decades now, the government has pursued companies for the most neutral and fair of decision-making processes and for ever-smaller "offenses" in one direction, while turning a blind eye towards or actively demanding that institutions discriminate against other, disfavored groups. This is not just, and neither is it in the plain text of the law.
Disparate Impact Cannot Coexist with True Equality
Since its invention in the 1971 case Griggs v. Duke Power Co.,12 the logic behind "disparate impact liability" has been an affront to real equality and meritocracy. Because it imagines that one can work backwards from disparate results to discriminatory conduct, as University of San Diego School of Law Professor Gail Heriot has written, this interpretation of Title VII makes everything--any criteria for hiring whatsoever--presumptively illegal.13
This is, of course, because the baseline of perfect population-proportional outcomes by race, sex, national origin, and religion exists nowhere in the real world. Population-level differences exist across all four characteristics on every test, qualification, educational credential, and skill an employer could possibly seek or require.
The Griggs court imagined that they were creating a mechanism for getting at sneaky, unspoken discrimination, akin to the polling place literacy tests of the Jim Crow South. Instead, disparate impact liability has created a situation in which the EEOC can pick and choose between employers and hiring schemes to select the next victim, and worse, where employers are encouraged to actively discriminate against "majority" applicants in pursuit of a more "diverse" leadership brochure photo to show to the government.
Under the Biden administration, for example, the EEOC brought a lawsuit against the gas station chain Sheetz for a hiring process that screened out certain types of felons.14 Because black and Native American applicants were more likely to have those felonies on their records, the EEOC claimed that under disparate impact liability, the company was violating Title VII, even though at no point did the agency ever even allege that Sheetz was trying to discriminate against particular backgrounds. The fact that more applicants of certain races were screened out was enough for the lawsuit.
Curiously, although requiring a bachelor's degree for, say, an entry-level receptionist job also leads to disproportionate outcomes in that black and Hispanic applicants are less likely to have a degree, and white and Asian applicants more likely, using that particular requirement to hire has never led to a lawsuit from the EEOC. I'll leave it to the members of this Task Force to consider why that might be.
Even worse than the arbitrary nature of the EEOC's previous enforcement, however, is the encouragement given to employers to discriminate on the basis of race to achieve more "equitable" results. This is exactly the opposite of the intent of Title VII, which is to discourage discrimination on the basis of race.
In the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion, past administrations have trashed the most important guarantee of the Civil Rights era and incentivized employers to discriminate against white, male, Asian, and other disfavored groups in order to try to force a predetermined racial outcome around the boardroom. The extent of this discrimination has been, without exaggeration, an example of actual systemic racism in the United States, one that has left untold young Americans with real life-altering losses and often resentment against a system that has not rewarded them commensurate with their talents in a free competition.15
None of this is blessed or intended by the plain language of Title VII, nor can this interpretation be found in its legislative history or the public debate surrounding its passage. To the contrary, the Act's Senate co-managers wrote very clearly against such an interpretation in a memorandum to their colleagues: "There is no requirement in [T]itle VII that employers abandon bona fide qualification tests where, because of differences in background and education, members of some groups are able to perform better ... than members of other groups."16
Yet that's exactly what, under the Biden administration and previous Democratic administrations (and even some Republican ones), Title VII enforcement has become. Sacrificed for cheap ideological purposes was the actual intent of the law, the colorblind Constitution, and real equality.
All that has changed under the Trump administration, most recently with a critically important opinion from the Office of Legal Counsel, which declared this poisonous doctrine not only reversed but unconstitutional. According to the OLC, disparate impact liability "fosters the very discrimination its guidelines seek to address." Just so.
This opinion will provide the basis for future defendants like Sheetz to fight back against the abuse of the law from the EEOC, as showing mere "business necessity" will be enough to push the burden back to the plaintiff to show how a neutral hiring criterion constitutes actual discrimination, with the opinion noting explicitly that requirements such as background checks, aptitude tests, and SAT scores are "presumptively job-related."17
Furthermore, this opinion will likely generate the lawsuits necessary to give the Supreme Court an opportunity to fully rule in favor of the colorblind Constitution and the original purpose of the Civil Rights Act.
Restoring the Definition of Sex and Harassment
Title VII protects women from sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sex. While these guarantees have been unevenly enforced, and definitions stretched, for decades, under the previous administration the EEOC took redefinition to the next level.
The Commission's regulatory guidance from April 2024 (now withdrawn) made it "harassment" under Title VII to maintain basic privacy for female employees in sensitive spaces, such as restrooms, showers, and locker rooms. The 2024 guidance also infringed upon Americans' free speech and religious liberty rights in the workplace by claiming that "repeated and intentional" use of biologically correct, but unpreferred, pronouns is "harassment."18
As the preeminent legal organization dedicated to preserving the common sense, biological definition of sex, Independent Women's Law Center received inquiries from women in 2024 who had already been subjected to the results of this confusion.
As I testified in 2024:
"One woman who contacted us works with chemicals in an Ohio factory, the handling of which necessitates employees shower after work every day. The employer allowed a male, with full male anatomy, to shower with the women on the basis of proclaimed gender identity. When female employees complained about this obviously uncomfortable situation, the male was given a shower curtain, leaving the women in an intimate space, naked, with a man as a condition of their employment.
Another woman who contacted our Law Center tours with major concerts as part of her job, often in venues with group showers, until now separated by sex. Again, a man, with fully intact male genitals, was "accommodated" with access to the female showers. Even when the female employees tried to time their showers to avoid him, the male employee waited for them in order to shower alongside them. Unbelievably, in the age of microaggressions and EEOC-encouraged firings over mild jokes or offhand remarks blown up into harassment, allowing a man to hang out, waiting to watch his female coworkers shower is actually required, not prohibited, by the EEOC.
These are just two examples of situations where the privacy, safety, and comfort of women in the workplace have been sacrificed on the altar of gender identity politics required nowhere in the plain language of Title VII. The EEOC guidance explicitly states that employers who do not provide access to single-sex spaces on the basis of gender identity will be in violation of Title VII, forcing women to use the restroom, pump breast milk, and in some cases change or shower with male colleagues as a condition of employment...
The EEOC does not have the power to rewrite the protected categories of Title VII, and the EEOC's invented definitions of the word "sex" in the statute are creating exactly the kind of workplace situations that subject female employees to discrimination and harassment that the EEOC actually is empowered to prevent. If a male employee repeatedly showing his penis to unwilling female coworkers does not qualify as sexual harassment under Title VII, it's honestly hard to see what workplace behavior would."19
Until President Trump came into office, instead of doing their job punishing harassment and discrimination on the basis of sex, the EEOC was actively engaged in an attempt to force employers to do both.
The Trump administration, by contrast, moved quickly and decisively to end the farce of rewriting anti-discrimination law to include self-proclaimed gender identity, and to restore the biological definition of sex to federal law. The president signed an Executive Order on day one, "Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government."20
In it, the president declared:
"It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality, and the following definitions shall govern all Executive interpretation of and application of Federal law and administration policy."
But the Trump administration has not been content merely to restore the status quo ante for all of human civilization with regard to the definition of sex. The administration has also moved to use Title IX to prevent schools from forcing women to surrender their privacy, dignity, and opportunities in order to admit males who identify as female to single-sex spaces. Title IX bars educational institutions receiving federal funding from discriminating on the basis of sex or permitting an environment of harassment so extreme that female students are functionally barred from fully accessing their educational opportunities, including sports opportunities. As with Title VII, while this provision has been used by past administrations to demand all kinds of bogus "equality" claims, it's hard to imagine the plain text could mean anything if it doesn't cover forcing young student athletes to compete with and change alongside men, with male genitalia, as a condition for participation.
Just a few months after taking office, the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened a Title IX investigation into the University of Pennsylvania on exactly that basis, citing the president's Executive Order protecting women's sports and the biological definition of sex. By July of 2025, the University had surrendered and entered into a resolution agreement obligating it to prohibit males in women's sports going forward, restore titles and records to the women robbed of them, and issue letters of apology to females affected.21
The administration has targeted for further action some K-12 schools and entire states (California and Maine) for their policies in this regard.
What Still Needs to Be Done
The Trump administration has done an admirable job on the executive enforcement side, putting real equality under the law into action. But they're in office until 2028. How enduring are these victories and how likely are they to endure?
First, Congress (respectfully) needs to get back in action and make it clear that the law does not bless discrimination for special political purposes. That means not only codifying the Trump administration's prohibition on disparate impact liability and interpretations of Title IX and Title VII, but also reopening some of the changes made to the CRA in 1991.
Before the 1991 revisions, the only thing a complainant stood to gain by alleging invidious discrimination or a hostile work environment was what he or she had lost: an injunction requiring the employer to hire or grant a promotion, and lost wages from the moment the act of discrimination took place. Not only do these remedies make sense, they ensured that the claims that would be brought to the EEOC would be of at least a moderately serious nature, serious enough to lose a job over.
Since the 1990s, the originally somewhat loose definition of offense and harassment has combined with new and massive incentives for any disgruntled employee, and the recognition of the cumulative nature of multiple small incidents in the workplace to create some very unproductive incentives in these disputes. Too often, a disgruntled employee needs only to allege a series of "microaggressions" to trigger a settlement from the employer.
Not only does this clog up the agency and courts with frivolous cases, it has made employers extremely sensitive to any type of perceived offense, as judged by the most sensitive employee in the office. It's not an exaggeration to say that the entire culture of then-called "political correctness" that grew into what we call "woke" is in large part the result of employer fear of lawsuit because of these revisions to the law. In order to cover their butts, employers have had to get very picky about what employees joke about and reference in the workplace. A culture that stifles free exchange of ideas and punishes dissent is not conducive to a dynamic private sector or a broader ethos of free speech.
In addition to Congress, the courts have a huge role to play here. As Chief Justice John Roberts memorably wrote in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, all the way back in 2007, "the way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."22
In cases since, like SFFA23 and even a recent case regarding redrawing district lines,24 this Supreme Court has repeatedly signaled its allegiance to the principle that racial discrimination is not just forbidden by federal law, but by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Ultimately, the buck stops with the Supreme Court to call a halt to all this nonsense and enforce that simple mandate: Our Constitution is colorblind. There is no "diversity exception" to this just principle of our law. Ultimately, that means narrowing or overturning Griggs, correcting or striking down those parts of the law or regulatory interpretation that offend that basic equality principle. It means ensuring that the plain meanings of basic words like "sex" are not twisted to gut protections Congress meant to enshrine.
As Claremont Institute Senior Fellow Jeremy Carl has written, "We can either have equal civil rights for every American, or we can abandon the concept entirely. There is no third way."25 We can either have civil rights and just treatment for every American, regardless of sex, race, national origin, or religion, or we can have a legalized racial hierarchy system and Balkanized, resentful politics that puts us at each other's throats.
Americans of all political stripes, from red Florida to blue California, agree that we ought to be judged by the content of our character and what we have to offer on the basis of merit, whether we seek to offer that merit to an admissions committee, an employer, or as a contractor working with the federal government.
The Trump administration is, for the first time in decades, enforcing the Civil Rights Act and the Constitution equally, for all Americans. Now, it's up to Congress and the Supreme Court to make sure that principle continues to flourish.
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Footnotes:
1 In 2020, at the height of racial hysteria, California Proposition 16, an attempt to repeal Proposition 209 which bars discrimination and preferential treatment in public institutions on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin, was nevertheless defeated soundly by nearly 60% to 40. See: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Proposition_209_Affirmative_Action_Amendment_(20 20).
2 Exec. Order No. 14,173, 90 Fed. Reg. 8633 (Jan. 31, 2025). ("Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity")
3 Exec. Order No. 14,151, 90 Fed. Reg. 8339 (Jan. 29, 2025). ("Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing")
4 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).
5 U.S. Dep't of Educ., Office for Civil Rights, Dear Colleague Letter: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act in Light of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (Feb. 14, 2025), https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-sffa-v-harvard-109506.pdf.
6 Exec. Order No. 14,279, 90 Fed. Reg. 17,529 (Apr. 28, 2025). ("Reforming Accreditation To Strengthen Higher Education").
7 Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE).
8 Press Release, U.S. Dep't of Just., Justice Department Finds University of California Davis Medical School Discriminates Based on Race in Admissions (June 10, 2026), https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-finds-university-california-davis-medical-school-discriminatesbased-race-admissions.
9 Press Release, U.S. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm'n, EEOC Sues The New York Times for DEI-Related Race and Sex Discrimination (May 5, 2026), https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-sues-new-york-times-dei-related-race-and-sex-discrimination.
10 Id.
11 Hearing Before the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 118th Cong. (2023), https://www.congress.gov/118/chrg/CHRG-118hhrg56320/CHRG-118hhrg56320.pdf.
12 Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971).
13 Gail L. Heriot, Title VII Disparate Impact Liability Makes Almost Everything Presumptively Illegal, 14 N.Y.U. J.L. & Liberty 1 (2020).
14 Complaint, U.S. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm'n v. Sheetz, Inc., No. 1:24-cv-01123 (D. Md. Apr. 17, 2024).
15 Jacob Savage, The Lost Generation, Compact (Dec. 15, 2025), https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-lost-generation/.
16 Gail Heriot, Disparate Impact and the Soft Coercion of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Procedures, SCOTUSblog (Feb. 23, 2010), https://www.scotusblog.com/2010/02/disparate-impact-and-the-soft-coercion-of-the-uniform-guidelines-on-empl oyee-procedures/.
17 Constitutionality of Disparate-Impact Liability Under Title VII, 49 Op. O.L.C. ___ (June 9, 2026), https://www.justice.gov/olc/media/1444871/dl
18 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, April 29, 2024.
19 Hearing Before the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 118th Cong. (2023), https://www.congress.gov/118/chrg/CHRG-118hhrg56320/CHRG-118hhrg56320.pdf.
20 Exec. Order No. 14,168, 90 Fed. Reg. 8615 (Jan. 30, 2025). ("Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government").
21 U.S. Dep't of Educ., U.S. Department of Education Announces the University of Pennsylvania Has Entered into a Resolution Agreement to Resolve its Title IX Violations (July 1, 2025), https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-announces-university-of-pennsylvania -has-entered-resolution-agreement-resolve-its-title-ix-violations.
22 Parents Involved in Cmty. Schs. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701 (2007).
23 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).
24 Allen v. Milligan, 599 U.S. 1 (2023).
25 Jeremy Carl, Saving Civil Rights from Itself, The Am. Mind (June 23, 2026), https://americanmind.org/salvo/saving-civil-rights-from-itself/.
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Original text here: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Stepman-Written-Testimony.pdf
Heritage Foundation Davis Institute for National Security & Foreign Policy Testifies Before House Oversight & Government Reform Committee
WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses released the following written testimony by Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Combating DEI in American Institutions." DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
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My name is Mike Gonzalez. I am the Angeles T. Arredondo Senior Fellow on E Pluribus Unum at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses released the following written testimony by Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Combating DEI in American Institutions." DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. * * * My name is Mike Gonzalez. I am the Angeles T. Arredondo Senior Fellow on E Pluribus Unum at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimonyare my own and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.
Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding the persistence of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and trainings across the federal government, the education system, and broader American institutions, and its implications for civil rights, constitutional governance, and national continuity. I have written extensively on identity politics, critical theory, and political transformation in the United States.1
The issue before this Committee is not limited to personnel policies inside federal agencies or isolated programming in schools. DEI now functions as a broad institutional framework that shapes how government, education, and some segments of civil society define fairness, evaluate outcomes, and interpret inequality. What was once presented as a set of training programs has evolved into a governing ideology embedded across multiple sectors of American life.
As we saw with the bombshell report on the Smithsonian Institution published by the White House's Domestic Policy Council on July 4,/2 just before fireworks, DEI and DEI-type thinking has spread deeply into all our cultural institutions, including our museums. The report, which focuses on the National Museum of American History, but which is really an indictment of the entire institution, reveals that DEI permeates thousands of exhibits that reframe America. The NMAH recasts the Founding as a story of pure evil, Christopher Columbus as a "murderer, "slaver," and "thief," the Pilgrims as "colonizers," and Thanksgiving as a "National Day of Mourning." The Smithsonian, this report also reveals, "chose to proudly list a talk about a future where America no longer exists as a contribution to one of its 400+ DEI initiatives that fiscal year."3
DEI mushroomed under the Biden Administration, particularly following Executive Order 13985, which directed federal agencies to embed "equity" as a central principle of governance.4 This was the first executive order Joe Biden signed upon becoming president, underlining the important he assigned to the pursuit of DEI. This directive required agencies to identify statistical disparities across demographic groups and develop Equity Action Plans to address them. In practice, DEI transformed the federal government's role from enforcing nondiscrimination law to actively doing the opposite--pursuing color-conscious policies--in order to manage demographic outcomes across society.
Perhaps it is best at this point if we define each of the terms included in the DEI acronym, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. For that, I would like to make use of the work of James Lindsay, Bruce Gilley, and Peter Boghossian, three academics who were members of the Oregon Association of Scholars, a chapter of the National Association of Scholars, at the time they wrote the following definition.5 The three drafted a "Cheat Sheet for Policy Makers," which I will quote or paraphrase, and add my own expansions on this definitions.6
Diversity, according to this glossary, is "[a]n identity-based approach to society; includes only those who agree with Social Justice, which is a violation of individual identity; enforced intellectual conformity; political quotas; an attack on merit and a form of soft bigotry." Diversity demands that government, the private sector, the universities, all societal entities, to choose individuals because of their membership in the immutable characteristics of race, sex, etc., regardless of merit, talent or virtue, until an office, a classroom, a military base, etc. resembles a given base population statistically. It constitutes an affront to the dignity of the individual. As the great Christopher Hitchens said 15 years ago, "from now on it would be sufficient to be a member of a sex or gender, or epidermal subdivision, or even erotic 'preference'."7 But notice that people would not be chosen--hired, promoted, elevated, etc.--according to diversity of opinion, on the contrary. The goal is groupthink; ending up with people mouthing off the same orthodoxy. And even when it comes to epidermal, sexual or erotic subdivisions, diversity often comes to mean that only members of the so-called marginalized groups might be included; if a societal space such as an office or a courtroom completely excludes members of the so-called oppressor groups, that space is still considered diverse.
As for Equity, it means "equality of outcomes plus reparations, which is a violation of equality before the law; a dismantling of the foundations of a free society; state management of society by redistributing resources, opportunity, and access." The traditional meaning and sound of the word "equity" are so close to the old American promise of "equality" that many Americans may still believe it to mean that. That the word now means its functional opposite was demonstrated when Kamala Harris, as vice presidential candidate in November 2020, tweeted: "There's a big difference between equality and equity. Equality suggests, 'everyone should get the same amount.'" Equity, however, Harris went on, is "about giving people the resources and the support they need, so that everyone can be on [an] equal footing, and then compete on [an] equal footing. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place."8 No matter how much harder you have exerted yourself than the person sitting next to you, you both should end up getting the same amount. That, I put to you, is not the American expectation, it is the Marxist promise, one written in sand, of course. I had the good fortune of attending last week in Madrid a lecture by the President of Argentina Javier Milei, which he gave at the largest Catholic school complex in Spain, San Pablo-CEU, and where he said that 'Social Justice" in this new-fangled popular definition, amounts to nothing more than "envy plus rhetoric," and not the Catholic understanding of the common good.
Inclusion, according to this glossary, means "restricted speech and justification for purges, which is...an attack on freedoms of association and speech; an enforced separation of people by race ('neosegregation'). It is language codes, in other words, the opposite of what it promises. We just saw an example of this the other day when baseball players for the San Francisco Giants were prevented from wearing references to Bible verses on their caps, instead of the rainbow paraphernalia that accompanies the LGBTQIA+ celebration of "pride." Inclusion means including only expressions that promote the reigning orthodoxy and including those that dissent. Inclusion, in this understanding, means exclusion.
All of this represents a significant departure from the traditional civil rights framework. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution's 14th amendment are grounded in the principle that government must treat individuals equally under neutral law, without regard to race or other immutable characteristics. DEI frameworks, by contrast, increasingly define fairness in terms of statistical parity among groups. DEI is therefore illegal and un-American, as it transgresses traditional American understandings of the promise of equal treatment from which we must never deviate. But DEI is also immoral, as it proposes to treat people differently because of membership in an immutable characteristic, that is, a trait they were born into and which they can never change, such as race, sex, national origin, etc. To do so is inherently and recognizably unjust.
Morality distinguishes between right and wrong, good and bad behavior. We know it in our bones that to treat people differently because of something they can do nothing about is wrong.
Yet, this is what invariably obtains with DEI. Once disparities are treated as evidence of systemic injustice, which is what the related doctrine of Disparate Impact promotes, the logical policy response becomes race-conscious (i.e., illegal and immoral) intervention to adjust those outcomes.
This produces a system in which individuals were increasingly evaluated and categorized by group identity in order to achieve demographic targets across institutions.
Beyond government and education, DEI increasingly influenced private institutions, corporate governance, and professional sectors. Large organizations often adopted DEI frameworks in hiring practices, internal training, and public-facing policy commitments, extending the reach of identity-based governance beyond the public sector. This was not a neutral intellectual development. It had direct implications for how institutions defined fairness, allocated resources, and evaluated success.
When structural explanations became the default framework, alternative perspectives were often excluded from institutional consideration.
This expansion was reinforced by federal funding structures, regulatory expectations, and compliance frameworks that indirectly encouraged alignment with DEI standards. As a result, DEI functioned not only as a set of internal policies but as a broader cultural and institutional model that shaped behavior across multiple sectors of society. DEI entered into every facet of life. The effect was the normalization of identity-based decision-making as a standard feature of institutional American life. Whether in government, education, or the private sector, individuals were increasingly evaluated through group-based categories rather than treated strictly as individuals under neutral rules. To understand these developments, it is important to remember that the intellectual foundations of modern DEI frameworks drew from traditions associated with critical theory, which emphasized structural explanations of inequality and the role of institutions in reproducing social disparities.9
The DEI regime did not of course emerge with the Biden Administration, although he tried to activate it through the federal government during his years in office. DEI trainings go back over many decades, though it was only over the past 15 years or so that the acronym DEI became more standardized. These trainings, which are nothing but American versions of Maoist struggle sessions as practiced in China during the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, amount to attempts to indoctrinate Americans. Just as in Maoist China, the term used for DEI is "consciousness raising," in other words, these are attempts to dissuade Americans from viewing their country as wholesome and worthy of patriotic love. Americans are instead encouraged to see themselves as nothing more than members of the immutable categories; to believe that the existence of slavery, a tragedy that ended 160 years ago, robs the country of its legitimacy; that racism in American society is so pervasive that it is "structural" or "systemic;" and that system-wide transformation is therefore required.
DEI, then, should be seen as one more tool in the cultural Marxist attempt to transform the United States into something different, to dismantle its culture, heritage, traditions, norms, etc. and replace it with another system. What that new model would be is seldom described, though it sometimes escapes the lips of its promoters. An example is when New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in his inaugural address on January 1, 2026, "We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism."10 Katherine Gorka and I explained the transformation of Marxism from its original emphasis on economic material forces to its present focus on indoctrinating the population through education, trainings, struggle sessions, etc. in our 2024 book "NextGen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It."11
Unsurprisingly, DEI spread to k-12 education rapidly. Almost ten years ago I and others wrote about how the New York City Department of Education, in the largest education district not just in the country but in the world, made educators undergo consciousness-raising seminars to ensure they could identify "white supremacy" hallmarks. What were these hallmarks? They included "perfectionism," "worship of the written word," "either/or thinking," "individualism," "objectivity," and "sense of urgency."12 In other words, practices that help people succeed in life.
That was not all. These seminars and trainings derived from "Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups" by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun," which then used by the Smithsonian, the country's--and again, the world's--largest museum complex, in guidelines unveiled by the National Museum of African American History and Culture for how to talk about race. A graphic displayed in the guidelines, entitled "Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States." They included "objective, rational, linear thinking," "cause and effect relationship," and "quantitative emphasis," as "assumptions of whiteness and white culture" in our country.13 This is DEI: it is destructive, racist approach that makes us poorer, meaner and detached from actual reality. The writings, teachings, and trainings of DEI seek to erode support for the American system of individual rights, free-market economics, and parental control of children's moral upbringing, as well as America's culture and history.
It should surprise us none that the education system, which is meant to instruct young minds about facts and figures, and to transmit to them the culture, values and principles of their society, represented one of the most deeply affected sectors of DEI expansion. Universities and school systems across the country maintained centralized DEI offices with influence over hiring, curriculum development, faculty evaluation, and student programming.14
At the university level, faculty hiring and promotion frequently involved diversity statements, which were used to assess candidates' alignment with institutional DEI commitments. These requirements functioned as ideological filters that disadvantaged applicants who did not adhere to prevailing DEI frameworks. This raised serious concerns about academic freedom and intellectual diversity in publicly funded institutions.
In K-12 education, DEI frameworks were increasingly embedded in teacher training programs, instructional materials, and curriculum standards.15 The emphasis on DEI stressed structural interpretations of inequality and encouraged students to analyze historical and contemporary events through categories such as privilege, oppression, and systemic bias. While presented as analytical tools, they were the opposite, having the effect of narrowing intellectual diversity by privileging a single interpretive lens.
Teacher training programs such as the one I described was used in the New York City required educators to incorporate DEI concepts into classroom instruction and to interpret academic performance and behavioral outcomes through identity-based frameworks.16 Over time, this shaped not only curriculum content but also institutional expectations about how educators were expected to understand student differences.
At the higher education level, even after the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, concerns remained that institutions continued to pursue demographic outcomes through concealed or indirect mechanisms in admissions, recruitment, and so-called holistic review processes.17 While explicit racial preferences have been here and there more constrained, the emphasis on group-based outcomes continued to influence institutional behavior.
In K-12, President Trump set the tone of his new administration from the start by signing on his first day in office Executive Order 14151, Titled "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing."18 It explicitly criticized and targets the programs stemming from Biden's EO 13985, directing federal agencies to eliminate DEI initiatives throughout the federal government, and calling for increased scrutiny of DEI-related practices in institutions that receive federal support. Unfortunately, school administrators who remained intent on continuing to discriminate based on race and sex began trying to figure out how to defy the president or at least game the system as long as they could.
Some school districts have scaled back these DEI programs, to be sure. Many others, however-- particularly in deep blue states such as Illinois, California, Colorado, and New Mexico--have gone on as if the only thing that had changed was that they now had to disguise their efforts. The districts in question have rebranded DEI initiatives, changed program names, or embedded DEI concepts into other departments and strategic plans. These efforts are designed to preserve the same policies and priorities while avoiding public attention or potential legal challenges.
One example is the Fresno Unified School District in California. The district simply renamed its DEI Department as the Department of Culture and Student Inclusion. District leaders characterized the change as a "reorganization."19 The Superintendent simply named the head of the DEI department, Carlos Castillo, as Fresno Unified's chief academic officer. Castillo said the "core mission and efforts" around diversity, equity and inclusion remain a priority for the district.
Another example comes from Oswego School District 308 in Illinois. According to a report from Defending Education, district officials have continued developing a DEI plan for the 2026-2027 school year despite the heightened federal scrutiny. The plan reportedly includes professional development and training for a DEI Design Team in elementary and middle schools tasked with continuing to pursue race-conscious hiring and recruitment efforts.20
In other cases, school districts that have maintained DEI-related programs have faced federal investigations. In Colorado, Cherry Creek School District in Arapahoe County has come under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education following evidence of racially discriminatory practices. Complaints filed with the Department's Office for Civil Rights point to the fact that the district continues to provide programs, resources, and opportunities based on race and promote professional development materials that characterize the United States as fundamentally rooted in white supremacy.21
The investigation is examining whether any district practices violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race in federally funded programs. The outcome of the investigation could have significant implications for how school districts nationwide implement DEI initiatives moving forward.
The Trump Administration is also trying to fight DEI in other ways. On May 29, the Office of Management and Budget issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that will shut down millions in federal spending on leftist mischief throughout the country.22 With this sweeping rules change, the OMB proposes codifying many of the executive orders. The rule would largely dry up funding for DEI, critical race theory, disparate impact, and all other types of racial and sexual discrimination disguised as social justice programs.
In sum, the contrast between the Biden and Trump administrations underscores a fundamental shift in approach to civil rights enforcement. The Biden administration expanded and institutionalized DEI as a governing framework across federal agencies and federally influenced institutions. By contrast, the Trump administration's executive orders represented a necessary corrective, reasserting the principle of equal treatment under the law and beginning the process of dismantling race-, sex and other identity-based preferences embedded within federal structures.
That said, executive action alone is not sufficient to fully reverse the depth of institutional change that has occurred. As I have said, many DEI-related practices remain embedded within educational systems, regulatory frameworks, and private-sector institutions influenced by federal policy.
Preserving the American constitutional tradition of individual equality before the law will therefore require sustained congressional oversight, continued administrative implementation of nondiscrimination principles, and ongoing efforts to ensure that federal institutions remain neutral, accountable, and consistent with that foundational standard. Congress has a role to play by translating into legislation the actions that the Administration has taken with its executive orders and its rule making. That way, we can rest assured that the effort has a right to survive in the future. The tide has turned, the climate of public opinion strongly supports returning to the promise of colorblind policy-making. That's how President Trump was re-elected, that's how you were elected.
Seize the moment.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to your questions.
* * *
The Heritage Foundation is a public policy, research, and educational organization recognized as exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It is privately supported and receives no funds from any government at any level, nor does it perform any government or other contract work.
The Heritage Foundation is the most broadly supported think tank in the United States. During 2025, it had hundreds of thousands of individual, foundation, and corporate supporters representing every state in the U.S. Its 2025 operating income came from the following sources:
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Members of The Heritage Foundation staff testify as individuals discussing their own independent research. The views expressed are their own and do not reflect an institutional position of The Heritage Foundation or its board of trustees.
* * *
1 Mike Gonzalez, "Staff Commentary on Identity Politics and Civil Rights," The Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/staff/mike-gonzalez.
2 Saving America's Story, Report, The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/07/saving-americasstory/
3 Ibid. pg. 127.
4 Mike Gonzalez, "Biden's Embrace of 'Equity' Means He's Abandoned the Quest for Equality, February 2, 2026. https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/bidens-embrace-equity-means-hes-abandoned-the-quest-equality, "Pushing Equity Under the Guise of Unity," The Heritage Foundation (2021), https://www.heritage.org/civilrights/commentary/pushing-equity-under-the-guise-unity
5 Oregon Association of Scholar, "About," https://oregonscholars.org/about/ (accessed October 13, 2022)
6 Bruce Gilley, Peter Boghossian, and James Lindsay, "Responding to Social Justice Rhetoric: A Cheat Sheet for Policy Makers," undated, https://civicsalliance.org/responding-to-social-justice-rhetoric-a-cheat-sheet-for-policy-makers/ (accessed October 28, 2022).
7 Christopher Hitchens, "Hitch 22: A Memoir", Goodreads, January 1, 2010. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7332753-hitch-22
8 Kamala Harris, tweet, November 1, 2020, 1:06 p.m., https://twitter.com/kamalaharris/status/1322963321994289154?lang=en (accessed October 18, 2022)
9 Katharine Gorka and Mike Gonzalez, "The Radicalization of Race: Philanthropy and DEI Katharine" Special Report, The Heritage Foundation, Dec. 21, 2022. https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2022-12/SR263.pdf
10 Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Inaugural Address. Jan. 1, 2026. https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/01/mayorzohran-mamdani-inaugural-address
11 "NextGen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It," Mike Gonzalez and Katharine Gorka. Encounter Books, 2024,
12 "Richard Carranza held 'white-supremacy culture' training for school administrators," Susan Edelman, Selim Algar, and Aaron Feis, The New York Post, May 20, 2019. https://nypost.com/2019/05/20/richard-carranza-held-doe-whitesupremacy-culture-training/
13 "In Smithsonian Race Guidelines, Rational Thinking and Hard Work Are White Values," Newsweek, July 17, 2020. https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333
14 Mike Gonzalez, "Breaking the DEI Trance," The Heritage Foundation https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/breaking-the-dei-trance
15 Leonor Corsino and Anthony T. Fuller, "Educating for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Review of Commonly Used Educational Approaches," Journal of Clinical and Translational Science 5, no. 1 (January 1, 2021): e169, https://doi.org/10.1017/cts.2021.834.
16 Gregory Lyakhov, "DEI Is Not Disappearing. New York Is Just Renaming It.," Townhall.Com, May 26, 2026, https://townhall.com/columnists/gregory-lyakhov/2026/05/26/dei-is-not-disappearing-new-york-is-just-renaming-itn2676632.
17 Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzalez. (2025, September 2). Uncovering radical efforts to disguise DEI. The Heritage Foundation. https://www.heritage.org/education/report/uncovering-radical-efforts-disguise-dei
18 Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. Jan. 25, 2025. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/01/25/2021-01753/advancing-racial-equity-and-support-forunderserved-communities-through-the-federal-government
19 Nick Fenley, Article: Fresno Unified renames its DEI department amid Trump administration's crackdown, Sept 11, 2025. MSN.Com. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fresno-unified-renames-its-dei-department-amid-trumpadministration-s-crackdown/ar-AA1MnAcy
20 "Oswego District 308's Equity Roadmap" Defending Ed. Feb. 16, 2026. https://defendinged.org/incidents/oswegodistrict-308s-equity-roadmap-elementary-high-school-equity-trainings-with-privilege-lists-prioritizing-recruitment-andadvancement-of-diverse-staff-led-by-director-who-called-charl/
21 Gabriela Vidal, CBS News. "Colorado school investigated by Dept of Education after complaints of racially discriminatory programming" June 9, 2026 https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-school-investigated-depteducation-complaints-racially-discriminatory-programming/
22 Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance, Federal Register. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance
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Original text here: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Gonzalez-Written-Testimony.pdf
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My name is Mike Gonzalez. I am the Angeles T. Arredondo Senior Fellow on E Pluribus Unum at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimony ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses released the following written testimony by Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Combating DEI in American Institutions." DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. * * * My name is Mike Gonzalez. I am the Angeles T. Arredondo Senior Fellow on E Pluribus Unum at The Heritage Foundation. The views I express in this testimonyare my own and should not be construed as representing any official position of The Heritage Foundation.
Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Committee:
Thank you for the opportunity to testify regarding the persistence of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and trainings across the federal government, the education system, and broader American institutions, and its implications for civil rights, constitutional governance, and national continuity. I have written extensively on identity politics, critical theory, and political transformation in the United States.1
The issue before this Committee is not limited to personnel policies inside federal agencies or isolated programming in schools. DEI now functions as a broad institutional framework that shapes how government, education, and some segments of civil society define fairness, evaluate outcomes, and interpret inequality. What was once presented as a set of training programs has evolved into a governing ideology embedded across multiple sectors of American life.
As we saw with the bombshell report on the Smithsonian Institution published by the White House's Domestic Policy Council on July 4,/2 just before fireworks, DEI and DEI-type thinking has spread deeply into all our cultural institutions, including our museums. The report, which focuses on the National Museum of American History, but which is really an indictment of the entire institution, reveals that DEI permeates thousands of exhibits that reframe America. The NMAH recasts the Founding as a story of pure evil, Christopher Columbus as a "murderer, "slaver," and "thief," the Pilgrims as "colonizers," and Thanksgiving as a "National Day of Mourning." The Smithsonian, this report also reveals, "chose to proudly list a talk about a future where America no longer exists as a contribution to one of its 400+ DEI initiatives that fiscal year."3
DEI mushroomed under the Biden Administration, particularly following Executive Order 13985, which directed federal agencies to embed "equity" as a central principle of governance.4 This was the first executive order Joe Biden signed upon becoming president, underlining the important he assigned to the pursuit of DEI. This directive required agencies to identify statistical disparities across demographic groups and develop Equity Action Plans to address them. In practice, DEI transformed the federal government's role from enforcing nondiscrimination law to actively doing the opposite--pursuing color-conscious policies--in order to manage demographic outcomes across society.
Perhaps it is best at this point if we define each of the terms included in the DEI acronym, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. For that, I would like to make use of the work of James Lindsay, Bruce Gilley, and Peter Boghossian, three academics who were members of the Oregon Association of Scholars, a chapter of the National Association of Scholars, at the time they wrote the following definition.5 The three drafted a "Cheat Sheet for Policy Makers," which I will quote or paraphrase, and add my own expansions on this definitions.6
Diversity, according to this glossary, is "[a]n identity-based approach to society; includes only those who agree with Social Justice, which is a violation of individual identity; enforced intellectual conformity; political quotas; an attack on merit and a form of soft bigotry." Diversity demands that government, the private sector, the universities, all societal entities, to choose individuals because of their membership in the immutable characteristics of race, sex, etc., regardless of merit, talent or virtue, until an office, a classroom, a military base, etc. resembles a given base population statistically. It constitutes an affront to the dignity of the individual. As the great Christopher Hitchens said 15 years ago, "from now on it would be sufficient to be a member of a sex or gender, or epidermal subdivision, or even erotic 'preference'."7 But notice that people would not be chosen--hired, promoted, elevated, etc.--according to diversity of opinion, on the contrary. The goal is groupthink; ending up with people mouthing off the same orthodoxy. And even when it comes to epidermal, sexual or erotic subdivisions, diversity often comes to mean that only members of the so-called marginalized groups might be included; if a societal space such as an office or a courtroom completely excludes members of the so-called oppressor groups, that space is still considered diverse.
As for Equity, it means "equality of outcomes plus reparations, which is a violation of equality before the law; a dismantling of the foundations of a free society; state management of society by redistributing resources, opportunity, and access." The traditional meaning and sound of the word "equity" are so close to the old American promise of "equality" that many Americans may still believe it to mean that. That the word now means its functional opposite was demonstrated when Kamala Harris, as vice presidential candidate in November 2020, tweeted: "There's a big difference between equality and equity. Equality suggests, 'everyone should get the same amount.'" Equity, however, Harris went on, is "about giving people the resources and the support they need, so that everyone can be on [an] equal footing, and then compete on [an] equal footing. Equitable treatment means we all end up in the same place."8 No matter how much harder you have exerted yourself than the person sitting next to you, you both should end up getting the same amount. That, I put to you, is not the American expectation, it is the Marxist promise, one written in sand, of course. I had the good fortune of attending last week in Madrid a lecture by the President of Argentina Javier Milei, which he gave at the largest Catholic school complex in Spain, San Pablo-CEU, and where he said that 'Social Justice" in this new-fangled popular definition, amounts to nothing more than "envy plus rhetoric," and not the Catholic understanding of the common good.
Inclusion, according to this glossary, means "restricted speech and justification for purges, which is...an attack on freedoms of association and speech; an enforced separation of people by race ('neosegregation'). It is language codes, in other words, the opposite of what it promises. We just saw an example of this the other day when baseball players for the San Francisco Giants were prevented from wearing references to Bible verses on their caps, instead of the rainbow paraphernalia that accompanies the LGBTQIA+ celebration of "pride." Inclusion means including only expressions that promote the reigning orthodoxy and including those that dissent. Inclusion, in this understanding, means exclusion.
All of this represents a significant departure from the traditional civil rights framework. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution's 14th amendment are grounded in the principle that government must treat individuals equally under neutral law, without regard to race or other immutable characteristics. DEI frameworks, by contrast, increasingly define fairness in terms of statistical parity among groups. DEI is therefore illegal and un-American, as it transgresses traditional American understandings of the promise of equal treatment from which we must never deviate. But DEI is also immoral, as it proposes to treat people differently because of membership in an immutable characteristic, that is, a trait they were born into and which they can never change, such as race, sex, national origin, etc. To do so is inherently and recognizably unjust.
Morality distinguishes between right and wrong, good and bad behavior. We know it in our bones that to treat people differently because of something they can do nothing about is wrong.
Yet, this is what invariably obtains with DEI. Once disparities are treated as evidence of systemic injustice, which is what the related doctrine of Disparate Impact promotes, the logical policy response becomes race-conscious (i.e., illegal and immoral) intervention to adjust those outcomes.
This produces a system in which individuals were increasingly evaluated and categorized by group identity in order to achieve demographic targets across institutions.
Beyond government and education, DEI increasingly influenced private institutions, corporate governance, and professional sectors. Large organizations often adopted DEI frameworks in hiring practices, internal training, and public-facing policy commitments, extending the reach of identity-based governance beyond the public sector. This was not a neutral intellectual development. It had direct implications for how institutions defined fairness, allocated resources, and evaluated success.
When structural explanations became the default framework, alternative perspectives were often excluded from institutional consideration.
This expansion was reinforced by federal funding structures, regulatory expectations, and compliance frameworks that indirectly encouraged alignment with DEI standards. As a result, DEI functioned not only as a set of internal policies but as a broader cultural and institutional model that shaped behavior across multiple sectors of society. DEI entered into every facet of life. The effect was the normalization of identity-based decision-making as a standard feature of institutional American life. Whether in government, education, or the private sector, individuals were increasingly evaluated through group-based categories rather than treated strictly as individuals under neutral rules. To understand these developments, it is important to remember that the intellectual foundations of modern DEI frameworks drew from traditions associated with critical theory, which emphasized structural explanations of inequality and the role of institutions in reproducing social disparities.9
The DEI regime did not of course emerge with the Biden Administration, although he tried to activate it through the federal government during his years in office. DEI trainings go back over many decades, though it was only over the past 15 years or so that the acronym DEI became more standardized. These trainings, which are nothing but American versions of Maoist struggle sessions as practiced in China during the 1966-1976 Cultural Revolution, amount to attempts to indoctrinate Americans. Just as in Maoist China, the term used for DEI is "consciousness raising," in other words, these are attempts to dissuade Americans from viewing their country as wholesome and worthy of patriotic love. Americans are instead encouraged to see themselves as nothing more than members of the immutable categories; to believe that the existence of slavery, a tragedy that ended 160 years ago, robs the country of its legitimacy; that racism in American society is so pervasive that it is "structural" or "systemic;" and that system-wide transformation is therefore required.
DEI, then, should be seen as one more tool in the cultural Marxist attempt to transform the United States into something different, to dismantle its culture, heritage, traditions, norms, etc. and replace it with another system. What that new model would be is seldom described, though it sometimes escapes the lips of its promoters. An example is when New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in his inaugural address on January 1, 2026, "We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism."10 Katherine Gorka and I explained the transformation of Marxism from its original emphasis on economic material forces to its present focus on indoctrinating the population through education, trainings, struggle sessions, etc. in our 2024 book "NextGen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It."11
Unsurprisingly, DEI spread to k-12 education rapidly. Almost ten years ago I and others wrote about how the New York City Department of Education, in the largest education district not just in the country but in the world, made educators undergo consciousness-raising seminars to ensure they could identify "white supremacy" hallmarks. What were these hallmarks? They included "perfectionism," "worship of the written word," "either/or thinking," "individualism," "objectivity," and "sense of urgency."12 In other words, practices that help people succeed in life.
That was not all. These seminars and trainings derived from "Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups" by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun," which then used by the Smithsonian, the country's--and again, the world's--largest museum complex, in guidelines unveiled by the National Museum of African American History and Culture for how to talk about race. A graphic displayed in the guidelines, entitled "Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States." They included "objective, rational, linear thinking," "cause and effect relationship," and "quantitative emphasis," as "assumptions of whiteness and white culture" in our country.13 This is DEI: it is destructive, racist approach that makes us poorer, meaner and detached from actual reality. The writings, teachings, and trainings of DEI seek to erode support for the American system of individual rights, free-market economics, and parental control of children's moral upbringing, as well as America's culture and history.
It should surprise us none that the education system, which is meant to instruct young minds about facts and figures, and to transmit to them the culture, values and principles of their society, represented one of the most deeply affected sectors of DEI expansion. Universities and school systems across the country maintained centralized DEI offices with influence over hiring, curriculum development, faculty evaluation, and student programming.14
At the university level, faculty hiring and promotion frequently involved diversity statements, which were used to assess candidates' alignment with institutional DEI commitments. These requirements functioned as ideological filters that disadvantaged applicants who did not adhere to prevailing DEI frameworks. This raised serious concerns about academic freedom and intellectual diversity in publicly funded institutions.
In K-12 education, DEI frameworks were increasingly embedded in teacher training programs, instructional materials, and curriculum standards.15 The emphasis on DEI stressed structural interpretations of inequality and encouraged students to analyze historical and contemporary events through categories such as privilege, oppression, and systemic bias. While presented as analytical tools, they were the opposite, having the effect of narrowing intellectual diversity by privileging a single interpretive lens.
Teacher training programs such as the one I described was used in the New York City required educators to incorporate DEI concepts into classroom instruction and to interpret academic performance and behavioral outcomes through identity-based frameworks.16 Over time, this shaped not only curriculum content but also institutional expectations about how educators were expected to understand student differences.
At the higher education level, even after the Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, concerns remained that institutions continued to pursue demographic outcomes through concealed or indirect mechanisms in admissions, recruitment, and so-called holistic review processes.17 While explicit racial preferences have been here and there more constrained, the emphasis on group-based outcomes continued to influence institutional behavior.
In K-12, President Trump set the tone of his new administration from the start by signing on his first day in office Executive Order 14151, Titled "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing."18 It explicitly criticized and targets the programs stemming from Biden's EO 13985, directing federal agencies to eliminate DEI initiatives throughout the federal government, and calling for increased scrutiny of DEI-related practices in institutions that receive federal support. Unfortunately, school administrators who remained intent on continuing to discriminate based on race and sex began trying to figure out how to defy the president or at least game the system as long as they could.
Some school districts have scaled back these DEI programs, to be sure. Many others, however-- particularly in deep blue states such as Illinois, California, Colorado, and New Mexico--have gone on as if the only thing that had changed was that they now had to disguise their efforts. The districts in question have rebranded DEI initiatives, changed program names, or embedded DEI concepts into other departments and strategic plans. These efforts are designed to preserve the same policies and priorities while avoiding public attention or potential legal challenges.
One example is the Fresno Unified School District in California. The district simply renamed its DEI Department as the Department of Culture and Student Inclusion. District leaders characterized the change as a "reorganization."19 The Superintendent simply named the head of the DEI department, Carlos Castillo, as Fresno Unified's chief academic officer. Castillo said the "core mission and efforts" around diversity, equity and inclusion remain a priority for the district.
Another example comes from Oswego School District 308 in Illinois. According to a report from Defending Education, district officials have continued developing a DEI plan for the 2026-2027 school year despite the heightened federal scrutiny. The plan reportedly includes professional development and training for a DEI Design Team in elementary and middle schools tasked with continuing to pursue race-conscious hiring and recruitment efforts.20
In other cases, school districts that have maintained DEI-related programs have faced federal investigations. In Colorado, Cherry Creek School District in Arapahoe County has come under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education following evidence of racially discriminatory practices. Complaints filed with the Department's Office for Civil Rights point to the fact that the district continues to provide programs, resources, and opportunities based on race and promote professional development materials that characterize the United States as fundamentally rooted in white supremacy.21
The investigation is examining whether any district practices violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race in federally funded programs. The outcome of the investigation could have significant implications for how school districts nationwide implement DEI initiatives moving forward.
The Trump Administration is also trying to fight DEI in other ways. On May 29, the Office of Management and Budget issued a notice of proposed rulemaking that will shut down millions in federal spending on leftist mischief throughout the country.22 With this sweeping rules change, the OMB proposes codifying many of the executive orders. The rule would largely dry up funding for DEI, critical race theory, disparate impact, and all other types of racial and sexual discrimination disguised as social justice programs.
In sum, the contrast between the Biden and Trump administrations underscores a fundamental shift in approach to civil rights enforcement. The Biden administration expanded and institutionalized DEI as a governing framework across federal agencies and federally influenced institutions. By contrast, the Trump administration's executive orders represented a necessary corrective, reasserting the principle of equal treatment under the law and beginning the process of dismantling race-, sex and other identity-based preferences embedded within federal structures.
That said, executive action alone is not sufficient to fully reverse the depth of institutional change that has occurred. As I have said, many DEI-related practices remain embedded within educational systems, regulatory frameworks, and private-sector institutions influenced by federal policy.
Preserving the American constitutional tradition of individual equality before the law will therefore require sustained congressional oversight, continued administrative implementation of nondiscrimination principles, and ongoing efforts to ensure that federal institutions remain neutral, accountable, and consistent with that foundational standard. Congress has a role to play by translating into legislation the actions that the Administration has taken with its executive orders and its rule making. That way, we can rest assured that the effort has a right to survive in the future. The tide has turned, the climate of public opinion strongly supports returning to the promise of colorblind policy-making. That's how President Trump was re-elected, that's how you were elected.
Seize the moment.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I look forward to your questions.
* * *
The Heritage Foundation is a public policy, research, and educational organization recognized as exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It is privately supported and receives no funds from any government at any level, nor does it perform any government or other contract work.
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Members of The Heritage Foundation staff testify as individuals discussing their own independent research. The views expressed are their own and do not reflect an institutional position of The Heritage Foundation or its board of trustees.
* * *
1 Mike Gonzalez, "Staff Commentary on Identity Politics and Civil Rights," The Heritage Foundation, https://www.heritage.org/staff/mike-gonzalez.
2 Saving America's Story, Report, The White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2026/07/saving-americasstory/
3 Ibid. pg. 127.
4 Mike Gonzalez, "Biden's Embrace of 'Equity' Means He's Abandoned the Quest for Equality, February 2, 2026. https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/bidens-embrace-equity-means-hes-abandoned-the-quest-equality, "Pushing Equity Under the Guise of Unity," The Heritage Foundation (2021), https://www.heritage.org/civilrights/commentary/pushing-equity-under-the-guise-unity
5 Oregon Association of Scholar, "About," https://oregonscholars.org/about/ (accessed October 13, 2022)
6 Bruce Gilley, Peter Boghossian, and James Lindsay, "Responding to Social Justice Rhetoric: A Cheat Sheet for Policy Makers," undated, https://civicsalliance.org/responding-to-social-justice-rhetoric-a-cheat-sheet-for-policy-makers/ (accessed October 28, 2022).
7 Christopher Hitchens, "Hitch 22: A Memoir", Goodreads, January 1, 2010. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7332753-hitch-22
8 Kamala Harris, tweet, November 1, 2020, 1:06 p.m., https://twitter.com/kamalaharris/status/1322963321994289154?lang=en (accessed October 18, 2022)
9 Katharine Gorka and Mike Gonzalez, "The Radicalization of Race: Philanthropy and DEI Katharine" Special Report, The Heritage Foundation, Dec. 21, 2022. https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2022-12/SR263.pdf
10 Mayor Zohran Mamdani's Inaugural Address. Jan. 1, 2026. https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/01/mayorzohran-mamdani-inaugural-address
11 "NextGen Marxism: What It Is and How to Combat It," Mike Gonzalez and Katharine Gorka. Encounter Books, 2024,
12 "Richard Carranza held 'white-supremacy culture' training for school administrators," Susan Edelman, Selim Algar, and Aaron Feis, The New York Post, May 20, 2019. https://nypost.com/2019/05/20/richard-carranza-held-doe-whitesupremacy-culture-training/
13 "In Smithsonian Race Guidelines, Rational Thinking and Hard Work Are White Values," Newsweek, July 17, 2020. https://www.newsweek.com/smithsonian-race-guidelines-rational-thinking-hard-work-are-white-values-1518333
14 Mike Gonzalez, "Breaking the DEI Trance," The Heritage Foundation https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/breaking-the-dei-trance
15 Leonor Corsino and Anthony T. Fuller, "Educating for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Review of Commonly Used Educational Approaches," Journal of Clinical and Translational Science 5, no. 1 (January 1, 2021): e169, https://doi.org/10.1017/cts.2021.834.
16 Gregory Lyakhov, "DEI Is Not Disappearing. New York Is Just Renaming It.," Townhall.Com, May 26, 2026, https://townhall.com/columnists/gregory-lyakhov/2026/05/26/dei-is-not-disappearing-new-york-is-just-renaming-itn2676632.
17 Jonathan Butcher and Mike Gonzalez. (2025, September 2). Uncovering radical efforts to disguise DEI. The Heritage Foundation. https://www.heritage.org/education/report/uncovering-radical-efforts-disguise-dei
18 Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. Jan. 25, 2025. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/01/25/2021-01753/advancing-racial-equity-and-support-forunderserved-communities-through-the-federal-government
19 Nick Fenley, Article: Fresno Unified renames its DEI department amid Trump administration's crackdown, Sept 11, 2025. MSN.Com. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fresno-unified-renames-its-dei-department-amid-trumpadministration-s-crackdown/ar-AA1MnAcy
20 "Oswego District 308's Equity Roadmap" Defending Ed. Feb. 16, 2026. https://defendinged.org/incidents/oswegodistrict-308s-equity-roadmap-elementary-high-school-equity-trainings-with-privilege-lists-prioritizing-recruitment-andadvancement-of-diverse-staff-led-by-director-who-called-charl/
21 Gabriela Vidal, CBS News. "Colorado school investigated by Dept of Education after complaints of racially discriminatory programming" June 9, 2026 https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-school-investigated-depteducation-complaints-racially-discriminatory-programming/
22 Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance, Federal Register. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance
* * *
Original text here: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Gonzalez-Written-Testimony.pdf
Coalition of Large Tribes Executive Director Semans Testifies Before House Natural Resources Subcommittees
WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs released the following written testimony by OJ Semans Sr., executive director of the Coalition of Large Tribes and a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, from a July 14, 2026, joint hearing entitled "Innovative Technologies and Initiatives to Tackle the MMIP Crisis in Indian Country." MMIP stands for missing and murdered indigenous persons.
* * *
Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Committee: My name is OJ Semans, Sr. I am an enrolled member of ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs released the following written testimony by OJ Semans Sr., executive director of the Coalition of Large Tribes and a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, from a July 14, 2026, joint hearing entitled "Innovative Technologies and Initiatives to Tackle the MMIP Crisis in Indian Country." MMIP stands for missing and murdered indigenous persons. * * * Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Committee: My name is OJ Semans, Sr. I am an enrolled member ofthe Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Executive Director of the Coalition of Large Tribes, or COLT. COLT represents the interests of more than 50 tribes with reservations of 100,000 acres or more, collectively controlling approximately 95 percent of Indian lands in the United States. Before my advocacy work, I served in Indian Country law enforcement, where I worked violent crime and narcotics investigations.
This testimony focuses on practical solutions. Funding deficiencies remain in this written record because no public safety system can operate without personnel, but the immediate question before this Committee is how Congress, the Trump Administration, DOJ, FBI, BIA-OJS, and tribal governments can make existing tools work better: task forces, trained investigators, prosecutor engagement, alerting authority, reliable data, family communication, case review, and tribal jurisdiction.
I. ACKNOWLEDGING PROGRESS AND BUILDING ON IT
COLT thanks FBI Director Kash Patel for his public focus on MMIP and for meeting with COLT executives in July 2025. At that meeting, tribal leaders pressed for stronger federal action, increased MMIP data sharing, expanded law enforcement presence, and better DNA testing capacity. COLT also appreciates Operation Not Forgotten and the Administration's effort to deploy FBI personnel to support tribal-community violent-crime and missing-person work.
Those steps should become a standing federal-tribal operating model. COLT recommends named federal points of contact, written escalation protocols, after-action reviews, measurable outcomes, rapid DNA and digital-evidence support, and a formal process for tribal governments and families to elevate stalled MMIP, homicide, and violent-crime cases.
COLT specifically appreciates Secretarial Order 3450 issued on May 5, 2026, and DOI's accompanying announcement that the Order launches an Indian Country Violent Crime Task Force to strengthen law enforcement coordination, protect families, and confront violent crime and drug activity in Indian Country. The Order's direction to BIA-OJS to coordinate with DOJ, FBI, tribal police, and other partners gives Congress a practical implementation framework for this hearing.
Those advancements should now be implemented with tribal governments as full partners: named federal points of contact, written escalation protocols, after-action reviews, transparent metrics, rapid DNA and digital-evidence support, and a formal mechanism for tribes and families to elevate stalled MMIP, homicide, and violent-crime cases.
II. SAY THEIR NAMES AND MEASURE THE RESPONSE
This hearing is about real people. We should say their names: Ella Mae Begay, Navajo; Thomas Rockroads, III, Northern Cheyenne; Tylen Valandra, Rosebud; Savannah Standing Bear, Rosebud; and Steven Lopez, a 10-year-old Pine Ridge boy recovering from a gunshot wound to the head after a Father's Day shooting. Their families deserve investigation, communication, and accountability.
Every MMIP or violent-death case should be evaluated on practical benchmarks: Was the scene secured? Were witnesses identified and interviewed? Was evidence preserved and tested? Were NCIC, NamUs, AMBER, or MEP tools used promptly? Was the family assigned a liaison? Was a federal prosecutor consulted early? Were federal, tribal, state, county, and municipal partners communicating from the first day? These answers matter more than announcements.
III. DOJ MUST BE A FULL OPERATIONAL PARTNER, NOT JUST A FUNDING PARTNER
COLT appreciates DOJ's engagement through the FBI, U.S. Attorneys' Offices, Office of Tribal Justice, Office for Victims of Crime, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and related MMIP initiatives. But DOJ's role should be institutionalized as a permanent operational partnership rather than periodic initiatives that depend on individual personalities or temporary assignments.
DOJ can make an immediate difference by ensuring every MMIP, homicide, and violent-crime case in Indian Country has a clearly identified federal point of contact, rapid prosecutor engagement, timely forensic support, family communication, and structured coordination with tribal governments. DOJ should establish written protocols among FBI field offices, U.S. Attorneys, BIA-OJS, tribal law enforcement, tribal prosecutors, victim-service providers, and state and local partners.
COLT recommends DOJ-supported recurring cold-case and active-case reviews for unresolved MMIP and violent-crime investigations. These reviews should include tribal investigators, federal prosecutors, FBI personnel, BIA-OJS, victim advocates, family liaisons, and forensic experts.
Cases often remain unresolved not because evidence does not exist, but because leads were not coordinated, information was not shared, or resources were unavailable at critical points.
IV. USE THE HPPG LESSON: SUSTAINED STAFFING, MEASURED OUTCOMES, AND FOLLOW-THROUGH
Federal surges can help families waiting for answers, but they must be evaluated and converted into permanent capacity. The 2010 BIA-OJS High Priority Performance Goal Initiative, or HPPG Surge, showed what works: sustained 24-month staffing at parity levels on Wind River, Standing Rock, Rocky Boy's, and Mescalero Apache. The Indian Law and Order Commission found violent crime dropped by 55 percent overall, including 68 percent at Mescalero Apache. The lesson is disciplined deployment, adequate staffing, measured outcomes, and follow-through.
Congress should require DOJ and DOI to measure every MMIP or violent-crime surge: deployment locations, duration, cases supported, arrests, prosecutions, response times, case clearances, missing-person outcomes, DNA-testing timelines, family communications, and whether tribal capacity remained after the deployment ended.
V. SCALE COLT'S 2023 MMIW/P COLD CASE TRAINING MODEL
COLT has already piloted practical solutions. In October 2023, COLT convened an MMIW/P cold-case training in Billings, Montana with the Vidocq Society, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the BIA Indian Police Academy, and the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. Agenda attached. The curriculum focused on first-responder priorities, initial reports, witness and suspect identification, interviews and interrogations, evidence collection and protection, checklists, homicide and major-crime scene management, chain of custody, cold-case unit operations, report writing, peer review, chronologies, and courtroom-ready documentation.
Secretarial Order 3450's emphasis on expanded basic training through the Indian Police Academy's Advanced Training Center at Camp Grafton should be connected to COLT's cold-case and first-48-hours model so BIA-OJS, tribal police, FBI agents, federal prosecutors, and victim advocates train together before the next crisis.
DOJ should help scale that model into recurring regional training for patrol officers, first-line supervisors, investigators, dispatchers, prosecutors, victim advocates, and family liaisons.
Training should be tied to real case review and produce standardized checklists for the first 48 hours.
VI. CREATE A GREAT PLAINS MMIP AND VIOLENT CRIME TASK FORCE PILOT
COLT recommends a Great Plains MMIP and Violent Crime Task Force Pilot based in or near Rapid City, South Dakota, to support Rosebud, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, Crow Creek, Northern Cheyenne, Pine Ridge, and other Great Plains communities. DOJ should designate a lead U.S. Attorney's Office and a dedicated FBI coordination team so prosecutors and investigators are involved from the beginning, not only after charging decisions are considered.
The pilot should include FBI, BIA-OJS, U.S. Attorneys, tribal police, tribal prosecutors, state investigators, county sheriffs, municipal departments, emergency managers, and victim-services organizations. It should use lessons from the Eid deposition, the Indian Law and Order Commission, and COLT's cold-case training: rapid response, cross-deputation, interagency communication, standardized case intake, evidence protocols, family liaison assignments, and outcome tracking.
VII. INTEGRATE AMBER AND MEP ALERTS AS ONE PRACTICAL FRAMEWORK
Congress should authorize integrated training and implementation of AMBER Alerts and Missing and Endangered Persons, or MEP, Alerts as complementary tools. MEP Alerts provide immediate public notification when a missing or endangered person does not yet meet AMBER criteria; AMBER remains the specialized response for suspected child abductions. The two systems should work together so investigators do not lose critical time while determining which threshold applies.
Congress should also prioritize tribal alerting authority. Native Public Media's testimony explains that only sixteen tribal governments are FEMA-certified Alerting Authorities. Tribes need support for FEMA IPAWS enrollment, governance documents, memoranda of understanding, technical implementation, exercises, recertification, dispatch procedures, public messaging, State-Tribal alert protocols, NCIC/NamUs data improvement, family assistance, tribal broadcaster partnerships, and annual exercises. DOJ should partner with FEMA, FCC, FBI, BIA-OJS, and tribal governments so alerts are integrated into investigative response plans rather than treated as isolated communications tools.
VIII. PRESERVE VAWA, TRIBAL DATA SOVEREIGNTY, AND COLT'S JURISDICTION FIX
Practical solutions also require authority. Congress should preserve and expand VAWA tribal jurisdiction, protect tribal data sovereignty, and enact COLT's jurisdiction fix to close gaps that leave non-Indian offenders beyond direct tribal accountability. Congress fixed a Supreme Courtcreated gap before through the Duro fix. COLT's proposal would amend 25 U.S.C. Sec. 1301 to recognize tribal criminal jurisdiction over all persons located in Indian Country, subject to due process protections under 25 U.S.C. Sec. 1302(c).
Technology can locate a phone, issue an alert, or map a search area. Jurisdiction determines who may investigate, arrest, prosecute, and prevent the next offense.
RECOMMENDED ACTIONS
1. Direct DOJ to establish formal MMIP coordination protocols among FBI field offices, U.S. Attorneys' Offices, BIA-OJS, tribal law enforcement, victim-service providers, and tribal governments.
2.Create DOJ-supported active-case and cold-case review teams for unresolved MMIP, homicide, and violent-crime investigations in Indian Country.
3.Establish a Great Plains MMIP and Violent Crime Task Force Pilot with a lead U.S. Attorney's Office, dedicated FBI coordination, standing federal-tribal-state-local protocols, and family-liaison requirements.
4.Convert Operation Not Forgotten and similar surges into measurable deployments with after action reports and tribal capacity-building requirements.
5. Scale COLT's 2023 MMIW/P cold-case training into recurring regional training using Vidocq, NCMEC, BIA Indian Police Academy, NIWRC, FBI, DOJ, and tribal experts.
6. Authorize integrated AMBER/MEP training and implement a Tribal Alerting Authority Initiative so tribes can issue timely IPAWS, WEA, EAS, AMBER, and MEP notifications.
7.Create model first-48-hour protocols for MMIP, homicide, child endangerment, sexual assault, domestic violence, trafficking, and narcotics-linked missing-person cases.
8.Improve NCIC, NamUs, GIS mapping, dashboards, DNA testing, digital evidence workflows, and data sharing while protecting tribal data sovereignty.
9. Preserve and expand VAWA tribal jurisdiction and enact COLT's jurisdiction fix (attached) to restore local accountability for crimes committed in Indian Country.
10. Maintain the written-record funding request for full tribal public safety funding, while tying new appropriations to measurable outcomes, training, alerting authority, DOJ collaboration, and investigative performance.
FUNDING RECORD PRESERVED
COLT continues to believe that tribal public safety and justice must be funded at actual need. BIAOJS reporting identifies funding at roughly 13 percent of need and an additional 25,655 personnel required using DOJ's 2.8-officers-per-1,000 baseline. Those figures remain part of the written record.
However, COLT urges Congress and the Administration to pair funding with operational reforms: DOJ collaboration, prosecutor engagement, training, alerting authority, task forces, data systems, family communication, tribal jurisdiction, and measurable outcomes. If President Trump understood the gravity of public safety conditions on our large land base reservations, we know he would help us. We hope this hearing sheds light on that and we can get his attention.
CONCLUSION
The Trump Administration and DOJ have an opportunity to turn national focus on MMIP into a durable operating model: sustained staffing, FBI-led coordination, U.S. Attorney engagement, COLT-style training, integrated AMBER/MEP alerts, tribal alerting authority, data improvement, forensic support, family communication, and restored tribal jurisdiction.
Technology can help find missing people. Practical capacity, DOJ collaboration, trained investigators, alerting authority, and tribal authority can help prevent people from going missing or being killed in the first place. Every Native person deserves an immediate response. Every family deserves answers. Every tribal nation deserves the operational tools and legal authority necessary to protect its citizens.
* * *
Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II15/20260714/119433/HHRG-119-II15-Wstate-SemansO-20260714.pdf
* * *
Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Committee: My name is OJ Semans, Sr. I am an enrolled member of ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs released the following written testimony by OJ Semans Sr., executive director of the Coalition of Large Tribes and a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, from a July 14, 2026, joint hearing entitled "Innovative Technologies and Initiatives to Tackle the MMIP Crisis in Indian Country." MMIP stands for missing and murdered indigenous persons. * * * Chairman, Ranking Member, and Members of the Committee: My name is OJ Semans, Sr. I am an enrolled member ofthe Rosebud Sioux Tribe and Executive Director of the Coalition of Large Tribes, or COLT. COLT represents the interests of more than 50 tribes with reservations of 100,000 acres or more, collectively controlling approximately 95 percent of Indian lands in the United States. Before my advocacy work, I served in Indian Country law enforcement, where I worked violent crime and narcotics investigations.
This testimony focuses on practical solutions. Funding deficiencies remain in this written record because no public safety system can operate without personnel, but the immediate question before this Committee is how Congress, the Trump Administration, DOJ, FBI, BIA-OJS, and tribal governments can make existing tools work better: task forces, trained investigators, prosecutor engagement, alerting authority, reliable data, family communication, case review, and tribal jurisdiction.
I. ACKNOWLEDGING PROGRESS AND BUILDING ON IT
COLT thanks FBI Director Kash Patel for his public focus on MMIP and for meeting with COLT executives in July 2025. At that meeting, tribal leaders pressed for stronger federal action, increased MMIP data sharing, expanded law enforcement presence, and better DNA testing capacity. COLT also appreciates Operation Not Forgotten and the Administration's effort to deploy FBI personnel to support tribal-community violent-crime and missing-person work.
Those steps should become a standing federal-tribal operating model. COLT recommends named federal points of contact, written escalation protocols, after-action reviews, measurable outcomes, rapid DNA and digital-evidence support, and a formal process for tribal governments and families to elevate stalled MMIP, homicide, and violent-crime cases.
COLT specifically appreciates Secretarial Order 3450 issued on May 5, 2026, and DOI's accompanying announcement that the Order launches an Indian Country Violent Crime Task Force to strengthen law enforcement coordination, protect families, and confront violent crime and drug activity in Indian Country. The Order's direction to BIA-OJS to coordinate with DOJ, FBI, tribal police, and other partners gives Congress a practical implementation framework for this hearing.
Those advancements should now be implemented with tribal governments as full partners: named federal points of contact, written escalation protocols, after-action reviews, transparent metrics, rapid DNA and digital-evidence support, and a formal mechanism for tribes and families to elevate stalled MMIP, homicide, and violent-crime cases.
II. SAY THEIR NAMES AND MEASURE THE RESPONSE
This hearing is about real people. We should say their names: Ella Mae Begay, Navajo; Thomas Rockroads, III, Northern Cheyenne; Tylen Valandra, Rosebud; Savannah Standing Bear, Rosebud; and Steven Lopez, a 10-year-old Pine Ridge boy recovering from a gunshot wound to the head after a Father's Day shooting. Their families deserve investigation, communication, and accountability.
Every MMIP or violent-death case should be evaluated on practical benchmarks: Was the scene secured? Were witnesses identified and interviewed? Was evidence preserved and tested? Were NCIC, NamUs, AMBER, or MEP tools used promptly? Was the family assigned a liaison? Was a federal prosecutor consulted early? Were federal, tribal, state, county, and municipal partners communicating from the first day? These answers matter more than announcements.
III. DOJ MUST BE A FULL OPERATIONAL PARTNER, NOT JUST A FUNDING PARTNER
COLT appreciates DOJ's engagement through the FBI, U.S. Attorneys' Offices, Office of Tribal Justice, Office for Victims of Crime, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and related MMIP initiatives. But DOJ's role should be institutionalized as a permanent operational partnership rather than periodic initiatives that depend on individual personalities or temporary assignments.
DOJ can make an immediate difference by ensuring every MMIP, homicide, and violent-crime case in Indian Country has a clearly identified federal point of contact, rapid prosecutor engagement, timely forensic support, family communication, and structured coordination with tribal governments. DOJ should establish written protocols among FBI field offices, U.S. Attorneys, BIA-OJS, tribal law enforcement, tribal prosecutors, victim-service providers, and state and local partners.
COLT recommends DOJ-supported recurring cold-case and active-case reviews for unresolved MMIP and violent-crime investigations. These reviews should include tribal investigators, federal prosecutors, FBI personnel, BIA-OJS, victim advocates, family liaisons, and forensic experts.
Cases often remain unresolved not because evidence does not exist, but because leads were not coordinated, information was not shared, or resources were unavailable at critical points.
IV. USE THE HPPG LESSON: SUSTAINED STAFFING, MEASURED OUTCOMES, AND FOLLOW-THROUGH
Federal surges can help families waiting for answers, but they must be evaluated and converted into permanent capacity. The 2010 BIA-OJS High Priority Performance Goal Initiative, or HPPG Surge, showed what works: sustained 24-month staffing at parity levels on Wind River, Standing Rock, Rocky Boy's, and Mescalero Apache. The Indian Law and Order Commission found violent crime dropped by 55 percent overall, including 68 percent at Mescalero Apache. The lesson is disciplined deployment, adequate staffing, measured outcomes, and follow-through.
Congress should require DOJ and DOI to measure every MMIP or violent-crime surge: deployment locations, duration, cases supported, arrests, prosecutions, response times, case clearances, missing-person outcomes, DNA-testing timelines, family communications, and whether tribal capacity remained after the deployment ended.
V. SCALE COLT'S 2023 MMIW/P COLD CASE TRAINING MODEL
COLT has already piloted practical solutions. In October 2023, COLT convened an MMIW/P cold-case training in Billings, Montana with the Vidocq Society, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, the BIA Indian Police Academy, and the National Indigenous Women's Resource Center. Agenda attached. The curriculum focused on first-responder priorities, initial reports, witness and suspect identification, interviews and interrogations, evidence collection and protection, checklists, homicide and major-crime scene management, chain of custody, cold-case unit operations, report writing, peer review, chronologies, and courtroom-ready documentation.
Secretarial Order 3450's emphasis on expanded basic training through the Indian Police Academy's Advanced Training Center at Camp Grafton should be connected to COLT's cold-case and first-48-hours model so BIA-OJS, tribal police, FBI agents, federal prosecutors, and victim advocates train together before the next crisis.
DOJ should help scale that model into recurring regional training for patrol officers, first-line supervisors, investigators, dispatchers, prosecutors, victim advocates, and family liaisons.
Training should be tied to real case review and produce standardized checklists for the first 48 hours.
VI. CREATE A GREAT PLAINS MMIP AND VIOLENT CRIME TASK FORCE PILOT
COLT recommends a Great Plains MMIP and Violent Crime Task Force Pilot based in or near Rapid City, South Dakota, to support Rosebud, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, Crow Creek, Northern Cheyenne, Pine Ridge, and other Great Plains communities. DOJ should designate a lead U.S. Attorney's Office and a dedicated FBI coordination team so prosecutors and investigators are involved from the beginning, not only after charging decisions are considered.
The pilot should include FBI, BIA-OJS, U.S. Attorneys, tribal police, tribal prosecutors, state investigators, county sheriffs, municipal departments, emergency managers, and victim-services organizations. It should use lessons from the Eid deposition, the Indian Law and Order Commission, and COLT's cold-case training: rapid response, cross-deputation, interagency communication, standardized case intake, evidence protocols, family liaison assignments, and outcome tracking.
VII. INTEGRATE AMBER AND MEP ALERTS AS ONE PRACTICAL FRAMEWORK
Congress should authorize integrated training and implementation of AMBER Alerts and Missing and Endangered Persons, or MEP, Alerts as complementary tools. MEP Alerts provide immediate public notification when a missing or endangered person does not yet meet AMBER criteria; AMBER remains the specialized response for suspected child abductions. The two systems should work together so investigators do not lose critical time while determining which threshold applies.
Congress should also prioritize tribal alerting authority. Native Public Media's testimony explains that only sixteen tribal governments are FEMA-certified Alerting Authorities. Tribes need support for FEMA IPAWS enrollment, governance documents, memoranda of understanding, technical implementation, exercises, recertification, dispatch procedures, public messaging, State-Tribal alert protocols, NCIC/NamUs data improvement, family assistance, tribal broadcaster partnerships, and annual exercises. DOJ should partner with FEMA, FCC, FBI, BIA-OJS, and tribal governments so alerts are integrated into investigative response plans rather than treated as isolated communications tools.
VIII. PRESERVE VAWA, TRIBAL DATA SOVEREIGNTY, AND COLT'S JURISDICTION FIX
Practical solutions also require authority. Congress should preserve and expand VAWA tribal jurisdiction, protect tribal data sovereignty, and enact COLT's jurisdiction fix to close gaps that leave non-Indian offenders beyond direct tribal accountability. Congress fixed a Supreme Courtcreated gap before through the Duro fix. COLT's proposal would amend 25 U.S.C. Sec. 1301 to recognize tribal criminal jurisdiction over all persons located in Indian Country, subject to due process protections under 25 U.S.C. Sec. 1302(c).
Technology can locate a phone, issue an alert, or map a search area. Jurisdiction determines who may investigate, arrest, prosecute, and prevent the next offense.
RECOMMENDED ACTIONS
1. Direct DOJ to establish formal MMIP coordination protocols among FBI field offices, U.S. Attorneys' Offices, BIA-OJS, tribal law enforcement, victim-service providers, and tribal governments.
2.Create DOJ-supported active-case and cold-case review teams for unresolved MMIP, homicide, and violent-crime investigations in Indian Country.
3.Establish a Great Plains MMIP and Violent Crime Task Force Pilot with a lead U.S. Attorney's Office, dedicated FBI coordination, standing federal-tribal-state-local protocols, and family-liaison requirements.
4.Convert Operation Not Forgotten and similar surges into measurable deployments with after action reports and tribal capacity-building requirements.
5. Scale COLT's 2023 MMIW/P cold-case training into recurring regional training using Vidocq, NCMEC, BIA Indian Police Academy, NIWRC, FBI, DOJ, and tribal experts.
6. Authorize integrated AMBER/MEP training and implement a Tribal Alerting Authority Initiative so tribes can issue timely IPAWS, WEA, EAS, AMBER, and MEP notifications.
7.Create model first-48-hour protocols for MMIP, homicide, child endangerment, sexual assault, domestic violence, trafficking, and narcotics-linked missing-person cases.
8.Improve NCIC, NamUs, GIS mapping, dashboards, DNA testing, digital evidence workflows, and data sharing while protecting tribal data sovereignty.
9. Preserve and expand VAWA tribal jurisdiction and enact COLT's jurisdiction fix (attached) to restore local accountability for crimes committed in Indian Country.
10. Maintain the written-record funding request for full tribal public safety funding, while tying new appropriations to measurable outcomes, training, alerting authority, DOJ collaboration, and investigative performance.
FUNDING RECORD PRESERVED
COLT continues to believe that tribal public safety and justice must be funded at actual need. BIAOJS reporting identifies funding at roughly 13 percent of need and an additional 25,655 personnel required using DOJ's 2.8-officers-per-1,000 baseline. Those figures remain part of the written record.
However, COLT urges Congress and the Administration to pair funding with operational reforms: DOJ collaboration, prosecutor engagement, training, alerting authority, task forces, data systems, family communication, tribal jurisdiction, and measurable outcomes. If President Trump understood the gravity of public safety conditions on our large land base reservations, we know he would help us. We hope this hearing sheds light on that and we can get his attention.
CONCLUSION
The Trump Administration and DOJ have an opportunity to turn national focus on MMIP into a durable operating model: sustained staffing, FBI-led coordination, U.S. Attorney engagement, COLT-style training, integrated AMBER/MEP alerts, tribal alerting authority, data improvement, forensic support, family communication, and restored tribal jurisdiction.
Technology can help find missing people. Practical capacity, DOJ collaboration, trained investigators, alerting authority, and tribal authority can help prevent people from going missing or being killed in the first place. Every Native person deserves an immediate response. Every family deserves answers. Every tribal nation deserves the operational tools and legal authority necessary to protect its citizens.
* * *
Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II15/20260714/119433/HHRG-119-II15-Wstate-SemansO-20260714.pdf
BIA Office of Justice Services Principal Director Addington Testifies Before House Natural Resources Subcommittees
WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs released the following testimony by Charles Addington, principal director of the Office of Justice Services at the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs, from a July 14, 2026, joint hearing entitled "Innovative Technologies and Initiatives to Tackle the MMIP Crisis in Indian Country." MMIP stands for missing and murdered indigenous persons.
* * *
Chairmen, Ranking Members, and Members of the Subcommittees, thank you for the opportunity ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs released the following testimony by Charles Addington, principal director of the Office of Justice Services at the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs, from a July 14, 2026, joint hearing entitled "Innovative Technologies and Initiatives to Tackle the MMIP Crisis in Indian Country." MMIP stands for missing and murdered indigenous persons. * * * Chairmen, Ranking Members, and Members of the Subcommittees, thank you for the opportunityto appear before you today to discuss the Department of the Interior's efforts to address the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) and improve public safety throughout Indian Country.
The MMIP Crisis in Indian Country
The Department is committed to protecting Tribal communities, bringing justice to victims and their families, and improving public safety across Indian Country. Addressing the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis remains one of our highest public safety priorities. American Indians and Alaska Natives continue to experience disproportionately high rates of violent crime, victimization, and unresolved missing persons and cold cases. Behind every statistic is a family seeking answers, a community seeking justice, and a shared responsibility across all levels of government to act.
As of June 30, 2026, there were approximately 1,485 active missing persons entered in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) identified as an American Indian or Alaska Native. These figures underscore the significant challenges facing Tribal communities and law enforcement agencies across the country.
Strengthening Public Safety
Through the Office of Justice Services, Indian Affairs works closely with Tribal, Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to investigate cases, support victims and families, and strengthen public safety throughout Indian Country. Recognizing the need for additional investigative resources and improved coordination, the BIA established its first dedicated cold case and missing persons offices under Operation Lady Justice in 2020. In 2021, those efforts evolved into the Missing and Murdered Unit (MMU), a specialized investigative support unit dedicated to assisting missing persons and unresolved homicide investigations involving American Indians and Alaska Natives. The MMU provides investigative and analytical support across jurisdictions by analyzing information, identifying leads, coordinating investigative resources, and assisting law enforcement agencies in resolving complex cases involving multiple jurisdictions and partners.
A Collaborative Problem-Solving Approach
The MMU employs a collaborative problem-solving approach that combines advanced forensic techniques, DNA analysis, artificial intelligence-assisted analytical tools, comprehensive case reviews, information sharing, and interagency coordination. DNA technologies continue to expand investigative capabilities and have proven invaluable in identifying victims, suspects, and investigative leads. Artificial intelligence-assisted tools help investigators organize large volumes of case information, identify patterns, prioritize leads, and review investigative materials more efficiently. This collaborative approach strengthens partnerships among Tribal, Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, ensures investigators have access to specialized expertise and resources, and helps provide families with greater transparency and support throughout the investigative process.
Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request
The Fiscal Year 2027 Budget reflects the Department's continued commitment to improving public safety and addressing violent crime throughout Indian Country. The request includes more than $560 million for Public Safety and Justice programs supporting law enforcement operations, criminal investigations, detention programs, Tribal courts, corrections, and victim services. The request also includes approximately $11 million and 26 full-time positions dedicated to the Missing and Murdered Unit. These resources support specialized investigations, intelligence analysis, case coordination, and partnerships with Tribal and other law enforcement agencies.
Indian Country Violent Crime Task Force and Refocus of the MMU
In May 2026, Secretary Burgum signed Secretary's Order 3450 establishing the Indian Country Violent Crime Task Force and implementing additional public safety enhancements, including refocusing the Missing and Murdered Unit on its core investigative responsibilities. The Task Force strengthens coordination among Tribal, Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies while focusing resources on violent crime, homicide investigations, missing persons cases, child exploitation, gang activity, narcotics trafficking, and other serious crimes affecting Tribal communities. The Department recently refocused the MMU on its core mission of supporting missing persons investigations and unresolved homicide cases, allowing personnel to dedicate additional time and investigative resources to complex cases and deliver more measurable results for victims and their families.
Secretary's Order 3450 complements existing initiatives such as the Missing and Murdered Unit by strengthening investigative services in Indian Country, improving information sharing, enhancing interagency coordination, and directing resources where they can have the greatest impact.
Partnership with Tribal Nations
The Department recognizes that addressing the MMIP crisis requires more than law enforcement action alone. Success depends on strong partnerships with Tribal governments, Tribal law enforcement agencies, victim advocates, service providers, community organizations, survivors, and families. We remain committed to working alongside Tribal Nations to strengthen investigations, improve data quality, enhance investigative coordination, support victims and survivors, and ensure meaningful consultation and collaboration. Together, these partnerships improve investigative outcomes, strengthen public safety, and help address the conditions that contribute to violence in Tribal communities.
Conclusion
The Department remains steadfast in its commitment to improving public safety throughout Indian Country and advancing justice for missing and murdered Indigenous persons. Through strengthened partnerships, specialized investigative resources, and coordinated law enforcement efforts, we are working to ensure every case receives the attention it deserves and that victims, families, and Tribal communities receive the support they need.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to answering your questions.
* * *
Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II15/20260714/119433/HHRG-119-II15-Wstate-AddingtonC-20260714.pdf
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Chairmen, Ranking Members, and Members of the Subcommittees, thank you for the opportunity ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs released the following testimony by Charles Addington, principal director of the Office of Justice Services at the U.S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs, from a July 14, 2026, joint hearing entitled "Innovative Technologies and Initiatives to Tackle the MMIP Crisis in Indian Country." MMIP stands for missing and murdered indigenous persons. * * * Chairmen, Ranking Members, and Members of the Subcommittees, thank you for the opportunityto appear before you today to discuss the Department of the Interior's efforts to address the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) and improve public safety throughout Indian Country.
The MMIP Crisis in Indian Country
The Department is committed to protecting Tribal communities, bringing justice to victims and their families, and improving public safety across Indian Country. Addressing the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons crisis remains one of our highest public safety priorities. American Indians and Alaska Natives continue to experience disproportionately high rates of violent crime, victimization, and unresolved missing persons and cold cases. Behind every statistic is a family seeking answers, a community seeking justice, and a shared responsibility across all levels of government to act.
As of June 30, 2026, there were approximately 1,485 active missing persons entered in the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Criminal Information Center (NCIC) identified as an American Indian or Alaska Native. These figures underscore the significant challenges facing Tribal communities and law enforcement agencies across the country.
Strengthening Public Safety
Through the Office of Justice Services, Indian Affairs works closely with Tribal, Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to investigate cases, support victims and families, and strengthen public safety throughout Indian Country. Recognizing the need for additional investigative resources and improved coordination, the BIA established its first dedicated cold case and missing persons offices under Operation Lady Justice in 2020. In 2021, those efforts evolved into the Missing and Murdered Unit (MMU), a specialized investigative support unit dedicated to assisting missing persons and unresolved homicide investigations involving American Indians and Alaska Natives. The MMU provides investigative and analytical support across jurisdictions by analyzing information, identifying leads, coordinating investigative resources, and assisting law enforcement agencies in resolving complex cases involving multiple jurisdictions and partners.
A Collaborative Problem-Solving Approach
The MMU employs a collaborative problem-solving approach that combines advanced forensic techniques, DNA analysis, artificial intelligence-assisted analytical tools, comprehensive case reviews, information sharing, and interagency coordination. DNA technologies continue to expand investigative capabilities and have proven invaluable in identifying victims, suspects, and investigative leads. Artificial intelligence-assisted tools help investigators organize large volumes of case information, identify patterns, prioritize leads, and review investigative materials more efficiently. This collaborative approach strengthens partnerships among Tribal, Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, ensures investigators have access to specialized expertise and resources, and helps provide families with greater transparency and support throughout the investigative process.
Fiscal Year 2027 Budget Request
The Fiscal Year 2027 Budget reflects the Department's continued commitment to improving public safety and addressing violent crime throughout Indian Country. The request includes more than $560 million for Public Safety and Justice programs supporting law enforcement operations, criminal investigations, detention programs, Tribal courts, corrections, and victim services. The request also includes approximately $11 million and 26 full-time positions dedicated to the Missing and Murdered Unit. These resources support specialized investigations, intelligence analysis, case coordination, and partnerships with Tribal and other law enforcement agencies.
Indian Country Violent Crime Task Force and Refocus of the MMU
In May 2026, Secretary Burgum signed Secretary's Order 3450 establishing the Indian Country Violent Crime Task Force and implementing additional public safety enhancements, including refocusing the Missing and Murdered Unit on its core investigative responsibilities. The Task Force strengthens coordination among Tribal, Federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies while focusing resources on violent crime, homicide investigations, missing persons cases, child exploitation, gang activity, narcotics trafficking, and other serious crimes affecting Tribal communities. The Department recently refocused the MMU on its core mission of supporting missing persons investigations and unresolved homicide cases, allowing personnel to dedicate additional time and investigative resources to complex cases and deliver more measurable results for victims and their families.
Secretary's Order 3450 complements existing initiatives such as the Missing and Murdered Unit by strengthening investigative services in Indian Country, improving information sharing, enhancing interagency coordination, and directing resources where they can have the greatest impact.
Partnership with Tribal Nations
The Department recognizes that addressing the MMIP crisis requires more than law enforcement action alone. Success depends on strong partnerships with Tribal governments, Tribal law enforcement agencies, victim advocates, service providers, community organizations, survivors, and families. We remain committed to working alongside Tribal Nations to strengthen investigations, improve data quality, enhance investigative coordination, support victims and survivors, and ensure meaningful consultation and collaboration. Together, these partnerships improve investigative outcomes, strengthen public safety, and help address the conditions that contribute to violence in Tribal communities.
Conclusion
The Department remains steadfast in its commitment to improving public safety throughout Indian Country and advancing justice for missing and murdered Indigenous persons. Through strengthened partnerships, specialized investigative resources, and coordinated law enforcement efforts, we are working to ensure every case receives the attention it deserves and that victims, families, and Tribal communities receive the support they need.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I look forward to answering your questions.
* * *
Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/II/II15/20260714/119433/HHRG-119-II15-Wstate-AddingtonC-20260714.pdf
America First Policy Institute Vice Chair Shire Testifies Before House Oversight & Government Reform Committee
WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses released the following written testimony by Michael Shires, vice chair of education opportunity and senior policy officer at the America First Policy Institute, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Combating DEI in American Institutions." DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
* * *
Chairman Gill, Ranking Member Simon, and members of the task force, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. It is a privilege to be here and ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses released the following written testimony by Michael Shires, vice chair of education opportunity and senior policy officer at the America First Policy Institute, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Combating DEI in American Institutions." DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. * * * Chairman Gill, Ranking Member Simon, and members of the task force, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. It is a privilege to be here andI am grateful for your leadership and service to our nation.
I am honored to speak to you today on the subject of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies (DEI) and their devastating impact on one of our most important national treasures--America's universities and colleges.
I am testifying today in my capacity as the Vice Chair of Education Opportunity and Senior Policy Officer at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI)--a nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute whose work focuses on putting the interests of the American people at the forefront of American public policy. I lead our extensive work in higher education, including research on how DEI undermines the core quality of the educations provided to millions of Americans each year.
I also speak as someone who has spent nearly 40 years in higher education policy and leadership, including 25 years as a professor and administrator at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy and, most recently, a three-years stint as the founding Chief of Staff of one of America's most innovative new universities, the University of Austin.
In a few days, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the proclamation that launched America on a path to freedom, opportunity, and prosperity unrivaled in human history. The central premise of that Declaration is the notion that "all men are created equal" and, even though we have not always lived up to that ideal, its pursuit has fueled 250 years of American success.
Yet our universities and colleges have set aside this principle, instead advancing a virulent DEI ideology rooted in the belief that the United States is a systemically racist, white supremacist project. DEI argues that certain disfavored groups (including whites, men, heterosexuals, even political conservatives) are "oppressors" who must give up their "privilege" in favor of those who are not. Today, this insidious ideology infects nearly every dimension of university practice and governance including hiring, promotions, tenure, admissions, and even academic publishing.
Over the last four decades, I have seen this contagion metastasize. I have sat in university committee meetings where I was personally lectured by peers because of the color of my skin. I have been asked to draft loyalty statements to this ideology to be considered for hire and explicitly told to hire candidates because of their race or gender rather than their ability to do the job. I have seen it devastate careers and close the door of opportunity to some of our best and brightest students.
This leftist monoculture undermines the very purpose of the American investment in higher education: to equip the next generation of Americans to think, debate, and make the best choices for our future based on evidence. The left only allows one perspective on campus--theirs.
On campus after campus, the conversation includes only the left, undermining the very intellectual diversity needed for higher education to fulfill its primary mission. Speakers are cancelled.
Students are failed. Shoutdowns, heckler's vetoes, violence and even murder are used to silence dissenting voices.
The American people collectively rejected this un-American divisiveness when they elected President Trump to restore the public interest to higher education.
And he has responded, taking bold steps to roll back the left's DEI stranglehold on higher education by revoking previous executive orders that mandated it, aggressively enforcing existing laws that ban discrimination in all forms--including those called for by DEI, reforming accreditation to increase accountability, limiting the use of the disparate impact doctrine in civil rights law, and demanding institutions be transparent and accountable to the American public.
As a result, DEI forces today appear to be in a state of apparent retreat. Do not be deceived. Many of these discriminatory processes are still at work, just reformulated or hidden for the moment.
AFPI supports and applauds the Administration's actions to reinstitute merit and to restore opportunity for all Americans in higher education.
We also welcome the chance to work with Congress and the Administration to codify these changes through legislation and rulemaking to ensure equal treatment for all Americans of every background in our colleges and universities, much as our founders would have envisioned 250 years ago.
Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to your questions.
* * *
Original text here: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Shires-Written-Testimony.pdf
* * *
Chairman Gill, Ranking Member Simon, and members of the task force, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. It is a privilege to be here and ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 24 -- The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Task Force on Defending Constitutional Rights and Exposing Institutional Abuses released the following written testimony by Michael Shires, vice chair of education opportunity and senior policy officer at the America First Policy Institute, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Combating DEI in American Institutions." DEI stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion. * * * Chairman Gill, Ranking Member Simon, and members of the task force, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. It is a privilege to be here andI am grateful for your leadership and service to our nation.
I am honored to speak to you today on the subject of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies (DEI) and their devastating impact on one of our most important national treasures--America's universities and colleges.
I am testifying today in my capacity as the Vice Chair of Education Opportunity and Senior Policy Officer at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI)--a nonpartisan, nonprofit research institute whose work focuses on putting the interests of the American people at the forefront of American public policy. I lead our extensive work in higher education, including research on how DEI undermines the core quality of the educations provided to millions of Americans each year.
I also speak as someone who has spent nearly 40 years in higher education policy and leadership, including 25 years as a professor and administrator at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy and, most recently, a three-years stint as the founding Chief of Staff of one of America's most innovative new universities, the University of Austin.
In a few days, we celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the proclamation that launched America on a path to freedom, opportunity, and prosperity unrivaled in human history. The central premise of that Declaration is the notion that "all men are created equal" and, even though we have not always lived up to that ideal, its pursuit has fueled 250 years of American success.
Yet our universities and colleges have set aside this principle, instead advancing a virulent DEI ideology rooted in the belief that the United States is a systemically racist, white supremacist project. DEI argues that certain disfavored groups (including whites, men, heterosexuals, even political conservatives) are "oppressors" who must give up their "privilege" in favor of those who are not. Today, this insidious ideology infects nearly every dimension of university practice and governance including hiring, promotions, tenure, admissions, and even academic publishing.
Over the last four decades, I have seen this contagion metastasize. I have sat in university committee meetings where I was personally lectured by peers because of the color of my skin. I have been asked to draft loyalty statements to this ideology to be considered for hire and explicitly told to hire candidates because of their race or gender rather than their ability to do the job. I have seen it devastate careers and close the door of opportunity to some of our best and brightest students.
This leftist monoculture undermines the very purpose of the American investment in higher education: to equip the next generation of Americans to think, debate, and make the best choices for our future based on evidence. The left only allows one perspective on campus--theirs.
On campus after campus, the conversation includes only the left, undermining the very intellectual diversity needed for higher education to fulfill its primary mission. Speakers are cancelled.
Students are failed. Shoutdowns, heckler's vetoes, violence and even murder are used to silence dissenting voices.
The American people collectively rejected this un-American divisiveness when they elected President Trump to restore the public interest to higher education.
And he has responded, taking bold steps to roll back the left's DEI stranglehold on higher education by revoking previous executive orders that mandated it, aggressively enforcing existing laws that ban discrimination in all forms--including those called for by DEI, reforming accreditation to increase accountability, limiting the use of the disparate impact doctrine in civil rights law, and demanding institutions be transparent and accountable to the American public.
As a result, DEI forces today appear to be in a state of apparent retreat. Do not be deceived. Many of these discriminatory processes are still at work, just reformulated or hidden for the moment.
AFPI supports and applauds the Administration's actions to reinstitute merit and to restore opportunity for all Americans in higher education.
We also welcome the chance to work with Congress and the Administration to codify these changes through legislation and rulemaking to ensure equal treatment for all Americans of every background in our colleges and universities, much as our founders would have envisioned 250 years ago.
Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to your questions.
* * *
Original text here: https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Shires-Written-Testimony.pdf
University of Illinois College of Medicine Interim Dean Benedetti Testifies Before House Education & Workforce Committee
WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The House Education and Workforce Committee released the following written testimony by Enrico Benedetti, interim dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion.
* * *
Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and members of the Committee.
I am Dr. Enrico Benedetti, Interim Dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, a role I have held since January 2026. Our university's mission ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The House Education and Workforce Committee released the following written testimony by Enrico Benedetti, interim dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. * * * Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and members of the Committee. I am Dr. Enrico Benedetti, Interim Dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, a role I have held since January 2026. Our university's missionis to provide the broadest access to the highest levels of educational, research, and clinical excellence. I have spent more than 35 years at our College of Medicine as a resident, transplant surgeon, and head of surgery, and I have dedicated my career to advancing organ transplantation.
The College's primary goal is simple: to train excellent physicians who provide the best care to all patients, regardless of their own background or the background of those they serve. We provide a medical education that focuses on science, evidence-based medicine and the professional competencies required to care for patients. We are here to train physicians--we cannot allow anything to displace rigorous medical training or interfere with our core educational mission.
Nothing should undermine the trust and relationships that must exist between patients and their doctors.
The College is committed to ensuring that its policies and practices comply with federal law. We are committed to providing a learning environment where all students--including Jewish students--feel safe, respected, and ready to learn. I am pleased to share that the College is taking concrete steps to continue to advance our mission:
* First, we will enforce our professionalism code to hold students accountable for hate speech and other misconduct, including conduct that occurs outside the classroom or clinic;
* Second, we discontinued an internal communication channel that had become a forum for inappropriate and offensive commentary;
* Third, we have changed our senior leadership structure to ensure clear lines of accountability. The new Vice Dean of Education will now have oversight over student complaints regarding misconduct;
* Fourth, we are updating the curriculum to better ensure that all of our physicians are trained to effectively treat patients from all communities; and
* Fifth, I have instituted an open-door policy so students, staff and faculty can bring concerns directly to me.
I am pleased to report that Jewish students and faculty, in particular, have told me that they feel safe and supported under my leadership. In the coming weeks, I will personally speak to our entire class of incoming medical students to make sure they understand the College's expectations for professionalism and respectful engagement within our diverse community.
These steps, among others, reinforce the College's focus on its core mission of training exceptional physicians. And they underscore that the College will not tolerate any form of hate, including antisemitism, or any behavior that undermines a professional and respectful learning environment. It is our collective responsibility to live the College's values of inclusivity, tolerance, respect, and excellence while training the next generation of physicians. Thank you.
* * *
Original text here: https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/uicom_-_benedetti_-_written_testimony.pdf
* * *
Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and members of the Committee.
I am Dr. Enrico Benedetti, Interim Dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, a role I have held since January 2026. Our university's mission ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The House Education and Workforce Committee released the following written testimony by Enrico Benedetti, interim dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. * * * Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and members of the Committee. I am Dr. Enrico Benedetti, Interim Dean of the University of Illinois College of Medicine, a role I have held since January 2026. Our university's missionis to provide the broadest access to the highest levels of educational, research, and clinical excellence. I have spent more than 35 years at our College of Medicine as a resident, transplant surgeon, and head of surgery, and I have dedicated my career to advancing organ transplantation.
The College's primary goal is simple: to train excellent physicians who provide the best care to all patients, regardless of their own background or the background of those they serve. We provide a medical education that focuses on science, evidence-based medicine and the professional competencies required to care for patients. We are here to train physicians--we cannot allow anything to displace rigorous medical training or interfere with our core educational mission.
Nothing should undermine the trust and relationships that must exist between patients and their doctors.
The College is committed to ensuring that its policies and practices comply with federal law. We are committed to providing a learning environment where all students--including Jewish students--feel safe, respected, and ready to learn. I am pleased to share that the College is taking concrete steps to continue to advance our mission:
* First, we will enforce our professionalism code to hold students accountable for hate speech and other misconduct, including conduct that occurs outside the classroom or clinic;
* Second, we discontinued an internal communication channel that had become a forum for inappropriate and offensive commentary;
* Third, we have changed our senior leadership structure to ensure clear lines of accountability. The new Vice Dean of Education will now have oversight over student complaints regarding misconduct;
* Fourth, we are updating the curriculum to better ensure that all of our physicians are trained to effectively treat patients from all communities; and
* Fifth, I have instituted an open-door policy so students, staff and faculty can bring concerns directly to me.
I am pleased to report that Jewish students and faculty, in particular, have told me that they feel safe and supported under my leadership. In the coming weeks, I will personally speak to our entire class of incoming medical students to make sure they understand the College's expectations for professionalism and respectful engagement within our diverse community.
These steps, among others, reinforce the College's focus on its core mission of training exceptional physicians. And they underscore that the College will not tolerate any form of hate, including antisemitism, or any behavior that undermines a professional and respectful learning environment. It is our collective responsibility to live the College's values of inclusivity, tolerance, respect, and excellence while training the next generation of physicians. Thank you.
* * *
Original text here: https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/uicom_-_benedetti_-_written_testimony.pdf
University of California-San Francisco Chancellor Hawgood Testifies Before House Education & Workforce Committee
WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The House Education and Workforce Committee released the following testimony by Sam Hawgood, chancellor at the University of California-San Francisco, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion.
* * *
Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and Members of the Committee.
The UCSF School of Medicine consistently ranks among the top U.S. medical schools in education, research, and patient care.
As a public university, we are committed to serving ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The House Education and Workforce Committee released the following testimony by Sam Hawgood, chancellor at the University of California-San Francisco, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. * * * Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and Members of the Committee. The UCSF School of Medicine consistently ranks among the top U.S. medical schools in education, research, and patient care. As a public university, we are committed to servingthe health care needs of people across California and the nation. That mission is deeply personal to me. I came to UCSF more than 40 years ago as a research fellow, and for nearly 30 years, I practiced medicine and ran a federally-funded research lab.
Patient-centered care is at the very core of the School of Medicine's curriculum. We teach students the fundamentals of medicine through a rigorous, science-based curriculum grounded in biology.
In compliance with national accreditation standards, we also teach future doctors that delivering compassionate, high-quality care requires an understanding of how a patient's background and life circumstances may affect their health outcomes. The Justice and Advocacy in Medicine course, or JAM, was designed to address these social drivers of health. JAM accounted for roughly two percent of total classroom time. Although much of JAM met school expectations, portions did not meet our standards for relevance and scholarship. In the fall of 2025, our standard curriculum review process indicated the need to discontinue the course.
We have implemented three remedial actions. First, in early 2026, the decision was made to replace JAM with an entirely new course. Second, we have implemented required training to reinforce the importance of Regents Policy 2301, which limits the use of the classroom to relevant course content. Third, all mandatory courses will be taught by university faculty who will be held accountable for meeting our standards.
We strive for an educational environment that is respectful and supportive of our entire community. Antisemitism and any other form of discrimination have no place at UCSF. Since 2024, an outside organization has provided professional training about antisemitism to faculty, staff, and students. As Chancellor, I have spoken out against antisemitism and held accountable those who violated our policies.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak about UCSF's commitment to educating outstanding doctors.
* * *
Original text here: https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/dr._sam_hawgood_opening_statement.pdf
* * *
Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and Members of the Committee.
The UCSF School of Medicine consistently ranks among the top U.S. medical schools in education, research, and patient care.
As a public university, we are committed to serving ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The House Education and Workforce Committee released the following testimony by Sam Hawgood, chancellor at the University of California-San Francisco, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. * * * Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and Members of the Committee. The UCSF School of Medicine consistently ranks among the top U.S. medical schools in education, research, and patient care. As a public university, we are committed to servingthe health care needs of people across California and the nation. That mission is deeply personal to me. I came to UCSF more than 40 years ago as a research fellow, and for nearly 30 years, I practiced medicine and ran a federally-funded research lab.
Patient-centered care is at the very core of the School of Medicine's curriculum. We teach students the fundamentals of medicine through a rigorous, science-based curriculum grounded in biology.
In compliance with national accreditation standards, we also teach future doctors that delivering compassionate, high-quality care requires an understanding of how a patient's background and life circumstances may affect their health outcomes. The Justice and Advocacy in Medicine course, or JAM, was designed to address these social drivers of health. JAM accounted for roughly two percent of total classroom time. Although much of JAM met school expectations, portions did not meet our standards for relevance and scholarship. In the fall of 2025, our standard curriculum review process indicated the need to discontinue the course.
We have implemented three remedial actions. First, in early 2026, the decision was made to replace JAM with an entirely new course. Second, we have implemented required training to reinforce the importance of Regents Policy 2301, which limits the use of the classroom to relevant course content. Third, all mandatory courses will be taught by university faculty who will be held accountable for meeting our standards.
We strive for an educational environment that is respectful and supportive of our entire community. Antisemitism and any other form of discrimination have no place at UCSF. Since 2024, an outside organization has provided professional training about antisemitism to faculty, staff, and students. As Chancellor, I have spoken out against antisemitism and held accountable those who violated our policies.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak about UCSF's commitment to educating outstanding doctors.
* * *
Original text here: https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/dr._sam_hawgood_opening_statement.pdf
UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine Dean Dubinett Testifies Before House Education & Workforce Committee
WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The House Education and Workforce Committee released the following testimony by Steve Dubinett, dean at the University of California-Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion.
* * *
Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and Members of the Committee.
The mission of the David Geffen School of Medicine is to improve health through education, research, and patient care. We have trained generations ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The House Education and Workforce Committee released the following testimony by Steve Dubinett, dean at the University of California-Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. * * * Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and Members of the Committee. The mission of the David Geffen School of Medicine is to improve health through education, research, and patient care. We have trained generationsof dedicated physicians and made scientific advances that have saved lives. This has included major advances in cancer, heart and lung disease, as well as neurologic disorders.
We are committed to educating future doctors who will improve health care across California and the nation. We prepare our medical students to deliver high-quality, evidence-based care grounded in science, clinical judgment, and professionalism. Effective medical care requires understanding how a patient's background and circumstances can affect health. As a critical care physician, who has cared for Veterans at the West Los Angeles VA, I have seen firsthand how much medicine depends on compassion, respect, and trust.
Teaching medical students how a patient's life circumstances can affect health is consistent with accreditation standards and is a necessary part of medical education. That was the intent of a now-discontinued course, Structural Racism and Health Equity. But, well before this Committee's inquiry, we determined that some of its content was not appropriate for a medical school curriculum. To address these concerns, we took the following concrete actions.
One, we eliminated the course and replaced it with a new one that emphasizes evidence-based medicine and relies on clinical case studies. Two, at my direction, only UCLA faculty may lecture in our medical school courses. Three, we have instituted training on University of California Policy 2301, which limits the use of the classroom to relevant course content. We are committed to a scientifically rigorous medical education that prepares students for the realities of patient care.
One of our core values is fostering a welcoming and inclusive medical school environment. Some of our Jewish community members have confronted painful moments since October 7, 2023. This resonates with me personally. Not all of my family made it out of Europe during the Holocaust, and I have personally experienced antisemitism growing up. Our medical school condemns antisemitism and all forms of hatred; we are committed to sustaining an environment where all community members can learn, work, and care for patients with safety and respect.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss the importance of medical education with you today. Thank you.
* * *
Original text here: https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/dr._steven_dubinett_opening_statement.pdf
* * *
Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and Members of the Committee.
The mission of the David Geffen School of Medicine is to improve health through education, research, and patient care. We have trained generations ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- The House Education and Workforce Committee released the following testimony by Steve Dubinett, dean at the University of California-Los Angeles David Geffen School of Medicine, from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. * * * Good morning, Chairman Walberg, Ranking Member Scott, and Members of the Committee. The mission of the David Geffen School of Medicine is to improve health through education, research, and patient care. We have trained generationsof dedicated physicians and made scientific advances that have saved lives. This has included major advances in cancer, heart and lung disease, as well as neurologic disorders.
We are committed to educating future doctors who will improve health care across California and the nation. We prepare our medical students to deliver high-quality, evidence-based care grounded in science, clinical judgment, and professionalism. Effective medical care requires understanding how a patient's background and circumstances can affect health. As a critical care physician, who has cared for Veterans at the West Los Angeles VA, I have seen firsthand how much medicine depends on compassion, respect, and trust.
Teaching medical students how a patient's life circumstances can affect health is consistent with accreditation standards and is a necessary part of medical education. That was the intent of a now-discontinued course, Structural Racism and Health Equity. But, well before this Committee's inquiry, we determined that some of its content was not appropriate for a medical school curriculum. To address these concerns, we took the following concrete actions.
One, we eliminated the course and replaced it with a new one that emphasizes evidence-based medicine and relies on clinical case studies. Two, at my direction, only UCLA faculty may lecture in our medical school courses. Three, we have instituted training on University of California Policy 2301, which limits the use of the classroom to relevant course content. We are committed to a scientifically rigorous medical education that prepares students for the realities of patient care.
One of our core values is fostering a welcoming and inclusive medical school environment. Some of our Jewish community members have confronted painful moments since October 7, 2023. This resonates with me personally. Not all of my family made it out of Europe during the Holocaust, and I have personally experienced antisemitism growing up. Our medical school condemns antisemitism and all forms of hatred; we are committed to sustaining an environment where all community members can learn, work, and care for patients with safety and respect.
I welcome the opportunity to discuss the importance of medical education with you today. Thank you.
* * *
Original text here: https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/dr._steven_dubinett_opening_statement.pdf
House Education Committee Chairman Walberg Issues Opening Statement at Hearing on Impact of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion on Medical Schools
WASHINGTON, July 23 -- Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Michigan, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, released the following opening statement from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion.
* * *
Last August, the Education and Workforce Committee opened investigations into the three medical schools before us today. We had received repeated complaints of severe antisemitism from students and faculty on these campuses, and we wanted to understand what was causing it.
It soon ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Michigan, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, released the following opening statement from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. * * * Last August, the Education and Workforce Committee opened investigations into the three medical schools before us today. We had received repeated complaints of severe antisemitism from students and faculty on these campuses, and we wanted to understand what was causing it. It soonbecame clear that the pervasive antisemitism we were investigating was the result of a deeper problem.
It was a result of the activist infrastructure that these medical schools themselves had constructed.
This infrastructure puts people into categories based on race and identity rather than judging people as individuals. It also incites antisemitism-- among other hatreds--by labeling Jews as white and, therefore, privileged and oppressors.
That same ideology has shaped admissions policies, hiring practices, and even curricula. For example, in May, the Justice Department found that UCLA Medical School intentionally admitted applicants based on race, trading merit for DEI.
UCLA is not alone. On now-removed webpages, UCSF touted its increasing numbers for residents who they claim are 'underrepresented in medicine.' Similarly, departments across the University of Illinois College of Medicine have pledged year after year to increase their proportion of certain medical students, residents, and faculty.
But admissions were only the beginning. DEI became part of the curriculum at these medical schools.
"For example, UCLA Medical School and the University [of California] San Francisco School of Medicine require students to take classes indoctrinating them in settler colonialist, anti-oppression nonsense.
These classes are filled with propaganda. They do not prepare medical students to become qualified, skilled physicians. They are focused on topics that have nothing to do with medical science--because they seek to make medical students not into competent doctors, but into far-left activists.
UCLA and UCSF have admitted as much to the Committee.
UCSF told the Committee that its required DEI class 'did not meet UCSF standards.' Specifically, the course did not meet 'benchmarks for student reviews' and 'did not align with graduation competencies [or] milestones.'
UCLA also told the Committee that its DEI course is 'no longer offered'
after a 'review of the first-year curriculum.'
Both schools are now offering replacement courses, which I worry will just be more of the same. It's clear that we need to spend some today learning how those courses made their way into the curriculum in the first place.
Today's hearing is about accountability.
We will be asking some difficult questions about the choices these medical schools have made.
Why are you prioritizing politics over medical education?
Why are you perpetuating antisemitism and discrimination?
Why are you turning doctors into activists?
We look forward to receiving your testimony.
* * *
Original text here:
* * *
Last August, the Education and Workforce Committee opened investigations into the three medical schools before us today. We had received repeated complaints of severe antisemitism from students and faculty on these campuses, and we wanted to understand what was causing it.
It soon ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, July 23 -- Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Michigan, chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee, released the following opening statement from a July 14, 2026, hearing entitled "Training Activists, Not Physicians: The Impact of DEI on Medical Schools." DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. * * * Last August, the Education and Workforce Committee opened investigations into the three medical schools before us today. We had received repeated complaints of severe antisemitism from students and faculty on these campuses, and we wanted to understand what was causing it. It soonbecame clear that the pervasive antisemitism we were investigating was the result of a deeper problem.
It was a result of the activist infrastructure that these medical schools themselves had constructed.
This infrastructure puts people into categories based on race and identity rather than judging people as individuals. It also incites antisemitism-- among other hatreds--by labeling Jews as white and, therefore, privileged and oppressors.
That same ideology has shaped admissions policies, hiring practices, and even curricula. For example, in May, the Justice Department found that UCLA Medical School intentionally admitted applicants based on race, trading merit for DEI.
UCLA is not alone. On now-removed webpages, UCSF touted its increasing numbers for residents who they claim are 'underrepresented in medicine.' Similarly, departments across the University of Illinois College of Medicine have pledged year after year to increase their proportion of certain medical students, residents, and faculty.
But admissions were only the beginning. DEI became part of the curriculum at these medical schools.
"For example, UCLA Medical School and the University [of California] San Francisco School of Medicine require students to take classes indoctrinating them in settler colonialist, anti-oppression nonsense.
These classes are filled with propaganda. They do not prepare medical students to become qualified, skilled physicians. They are focused on topics that have nothing to do with medical science--because they seek to make medical students not into competent doctors, but into far-left activists.
UCLA and UCSF have admitted as much to the Committee.
UCSF told the Committee that its required DEI class 'did not meet UCSF standards.' Specifically, the course did not meet 'benchmarks for student reviews' and 'did not align with graduation competencies [or] milestones.'
UCLA also told the Committee that its DEI course is 'no longer offered'
after a 'review of the first-year curriculum.'
Both schools are now offering replacement courses, which I worry will just be more of the same. It's clear that we need to spend some today learning how those courses made their way into the curriculum in the first place.
Today's hearing is about accountability.
We will be asking some difficult questions about the choices these medical schools have made.
Why are you prioritizing politics over medical education?
Why are you perpetuating antisemitism and discrimination?
Why are you turning doctors into activists?
We look forward to receiving your testimony.
* * *
Original text here: