In the last year of the Biden administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs inaugurated an effort to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion principles that would outlast their time in power.
In January 2024, the VA&#8217;s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Council met to discuss the results of a survey, wherein employees were asked to identify &#8220;pain points&#8221; connected to their individual identities — based on race, gender identity, and a number of other factors — in order to further embed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the agency.
The discussion centered on &#8220;identity insights&#8221; and was designed to &#8220;improve employee experience,&#8221; records obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America reveal.
Just under 300 participants identified some 5,710 &#8220;pain points&#8221; that ranged from complaints about a colleague making an &#8220;inappropriate comment&#8221; to concerns that office holiday decorations excluded certain religious preferences. Other &#8220;pain points&#8221; were centered on general workplace environment and feeling that other employees did not understand certain sensitivities connected to those identity characteristics.
The 2024 meeting, which was planned three years earlier, began as a partnership between the Veterans Experience Office&#8217;s Employee Experience Organizational Management Directorate and the Office of Resolution Management, Diversity and Inclusion to improve employee experience by addressing the &#8220;pain points&#8221; they experienced in the workplace based on their identities.
Those identities — in addition to race, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity — divided participants along religious lines and listed separate categories for Baby Boomers, Generation X-ers, Millennials, and Generation Z employees as well.
Of the 281 who were interviewed, only 3% answered based on only one identifier. Nearly one-fourth (24%) selected two identities, and 39% selected three. Of the remaining participants, 21% chose four identities, 11% chose five, and 2% chose six.
Following the late January meeting, the Council recommended a series of steps designed to make the VA a more receptive place for employees to express their &#8220;whole, authentic identity.&#8221;
&#8220;The three most pressing data fields that would benefit from a redesign as having emerged from the Identity Insights project include &#8216;gender,&#8217; &#8216;sexual orientation,&#8217; and &#8216;race,&#8217; as these categories either do not exist or do not exhaustively provide inclusive options for employees to holistically and accurately self-identify,&#8221; the study advised.
Another recommendation was for a &#8220;streamlined escalation pathway&#8221; for employees to resolve identity-based complaints — particularly &#8220;in the event of mistreatment, including reporting I*DEA issues, harassment, and general concerns with conduct in the workplace.&#8221;
Those complaints, the study indicated, could stem from interactions between employees, between employees and supervisors, and even between employees and the veterans they serve — with emphasis placed on the potential for veterans to create &#8220;pain points&#8221; that impact employees.
The study also suggested there should be an avenue for dealing with &#8220;the impacts of negative customer experiences on employees such as health practitioners providing additional coverage when LGBTQ+ Veterans are denied care by a colleague&#8221; — but did not provide evidence that such denial of care was happening within the VA system.
Almost one year to the day after that meeting — on January 27, 2025 — the VA under President Donald Trump had already begun to <a href="https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-ends-dei-stops-millions-in-spending-on-dei/">root out the DEI initiatives</a> within the department.
&#8220;Under President Trump, VA is laser-focused on providing the best possible care and benefits to Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors,&#8221; VA Director of Media Affairs Morgan Ackley explained. &#8220;We are proud to have abandoned the divisive DEI policies of the past and pivot back to VA’s core mission.&#8221;
In the year since, under Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, the agency has <a href="https://department.va.gov/2025accomplishments/">cut $14 million</a> in spending that went solely to DEI-focused initiatives and training. It is unclear whether the recommendations made during that meeting were ever implemented, and if so, what the new administration may have in place to put a stop to the process.

Department of Veterans Affairs

How The Biden Admin Tried To Keep The VA Woke After It Left Town

How The Biden Admin Tried To Embed DEI In Dept Of Veterans Affairs On The way Out The Door

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Donald Trump

Doug Collins

Joe Biden

Veterans

The following is an edited transcript from &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1894-not-playing-games-trump-launches-investigation-into-minnesota-libs?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.&#8221;
* * *
Michelle Obama went viral yesterday — on Martin Luther King Day of all days — for comments about shopping habits and race.
The viral description making the rounds, however, reads, &#8220;Michelle Obama says she is mindful to try to avoid white-owned brands&#8230;&#8221;
The question is whether what she actually said matches that description.
Let&#8217;s find out. Watch:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Michelle Obama says she is mindful to try to avoid white-owned brands and others also should be <a href="https://t.co/5MqY5gaxUv">pic.twitter.com/5MqY5gaxUv</a>
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/2013356579802767412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @EndWokeness/X.com
At a superficial glance, just hearing her words verbatim, you’d probably have to say the viral description isn’t entirely fair. Nowhere does she explicitly say “don’t shop at white-owned brands.” Nowhere does she say “shop at black-owned brands and not white-owned brands.”
And in defense of Michelle Obama — and I don’t generally defend her — that’s not literally what she said.
She said that if she sees a black-owned brand and she likes their stuff, she’ll choose that brand. But she stops herself. She doesn’t say, “and I won’t buy from anyone else.” She doesn’t say, “I only do it because it’s black-owned.”
But here’s the problem: she injects race into the decision. She’s saying, “If I like their stuff, and if it’s black-owned, then I especially want to buy it.” And when she says, “If you have the money to buy Chanel, you have the money to buy everybody,” she very carefully stops short of finishing the sentence. She doesn’t say “black-owned brands.” She says “everybody.”
What she’s doing is trying to privilege the black-owned brand while avoiding the explicit consequence of that choice. She wants to be a racial identitarian when it comes to the positive act of buying — of supporting a business — but she doesn’t want to be a racial identitarian when it comes to the negative act of not shopping somewhere else.
She never says, “Don’t shop at white brands.” Instead, she says you need to shop at black brands, and everybody needs to shop at black brands — but maybe not less at white brands.
It’s a kind of gobbledygook. And that’s why, ultimately, I think the viral description is basically fair, even if it’s not perfectly precise.
It’s like the IQ bell curve meme. At one end, people say she told people not to shop at white stores. In the middle, it’s “she said to shop at black stores but also shop at white stores.” And at the other end, what she’s really saying is: shop less at white stores. Her minor premise is wrong. She says if you have the money to buy Chanel, you have the money to buy everybody.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1894-not-playing-games-trump-launches-investigation-into-minnesota-libs?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
That’s simply not true. Money is a finite resource. Just because you can afford one expensive brand doesn’t mean you have infinite money. And even if you did have infinite money, you have finite closet space. You have a finite number of dresses you’ll wear. A finite number of days in the week. Where are you going to wear all these clothes?
This is the core problem with diversity ideology. If you privilege one thing, you necessarily disadvantage another. 
This is exactly the problem with affirmative action. Everyone says, “Oh, it’s great, we should help out black people.” And yes, for the vast majority of Americans, that sounds good. Who doesn’t want to help?
But affirmative action in practice means something very concrete. There are a finite number of spots at a university. A finite number of jobs. When you give an advantage to black people simply for being black, you are necessarily disadvantageous to someone else — often white people, or Asian people in the case of college admissions. There is discrimination happening. There is an injustice that comes with that, too.
The same logic applies here. When you say, “I’m going to shop at the black brand,” you are necessarily saying that, at the margin — the last dress that fits in your closet — you are not going to shop at the white brand. You are choosing not to go into that shop, not because you dislike the dress, but because of the race of the person who owns it.
That is discrimination on the basis of race. That’s what Michelle Obama is saying — without saying it. She doesn’t want to go all the way, but there is no other conclusion you can reach from her premises.
This ties directly into why people don’t really talk about Martin Luther King Jr. the same way anymore. Part of it is that the modern Left rejects him because he was too conciliatory and too egalitarian. But the other reason is that the practical politics don’t match the rhetoric.
Dr. King famously said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” 
And yet his successors say that in order to achieve that dream, we need affirmative action, DEI, and diversity ideology. Which, in practice, means judging people — especially white people — by the color of their skin.
Taken to its extreme, it means not shopping at white-owned businesses. And even if you agree with MLK’s premise, you are completely undermining it with these practical consequences.
So no, I don’t begrudge Michelle Obama for shopping at black-owned businesses. That’s fine. But if you’re going to say it, say it with your whole heart. Finish the sentence.
Tell people explicitly: shop at black businesses. Don’t shop at white businesses. Define what counts as ownership — 50% plus one ownership? Board seats? Stakeholders? I don’t know. But say it clearly.
And if you’re not willing to say that, then just buy the dress you like.

2025 Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival

Michelle Obama And The Logic Of ‘Mindful’ Shopping

Affirmative Action

Blacks

Business

Clothes

Corporations

Fashion

Michael Knowles

Michelle Obama

Opinion

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday declared over 100 laws and policies with &#8220;DEI frameworks&#8221; unconstitutional, The Daily Wire can first report, stating that these laws were being used to illegally discriminate in both the public and private sectors.
“This action to dismantle DEI in Texas helps fulfill the vision articulated by Martin Luther King, Jr. when he dreamed that his children would one day live in a nation where they were judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” Paxton said in a statement.
“It’s imperative that all private-sector employers, schools, and state and local government entities—based on this legal opinion—immediately abolish any DEI, affirmative action, or unconstitutional discrimination programs under their authority. We must return to the basic principles of equal opportunity for all,” Paxton continued.
The opinion specifically notes potential issues in programs like the Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) and the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) efforts.
The HUB program was meant to help “small, minority- and women-owned businesses&#8221; in the process of obtaining state government contracts, according to the Texas Department of Transportation <a href="https://www.txdot.gov/business/disadvantaged-small-business-enterprise/hub.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>. In October, acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock announced that new certifications for HUB would be stopped, posting to X that “Businesses deserve a level playing field where government contracts are earned by performance and best value — not race or sex quotas.”
Paxton noted that the opinion would not impact veterans who utilize the program, but that the sex- and race-based elements of the program run contrary to the state&#8217;s Equal Rights Amendment and the 14th Amendment&#8217;s Equal Protection Clause.
Meanwhile, the opinion rails against DBE mandates for “consideration of race and sex for seats on state boards, commissions, and committees,” a press release stated.
The attorney general also issued a warning to the private sector about potential “legal liability” if DEI practices are in place at Texas businesses, adding that “America is waking up to the egregious unfairness of DEI policies.”
Paxton also points to the Supreme Court&#8217;s 2023 opinion that ended affirmative action in higher education. The attorney general&#8217;s opinion notes that the practice is unconstitutional in Texas far beyond education, and said that his office will take action against governmental entities, including schools, that use DEI or affirmative action as a means of “unlawful discrimination&#8221; and &#8220;the erosion of merit-based decision-making.&#8221;
The Trump administration has made sweeping reversals to DEI-style policies at the federal level, ranging from the State Department to the Federal Aviation Administration. Many companies still have DEI practices in place, though others have begun rolling them back.

U.S. Supreme Court Hears Expedited Challenges Over Texas Abortion Ban

Attorney General Ken Paxton Dismantles DEI In Texas With Sweeping Legal Opinion

diversity equity inclusion

Ken Paxton

Texas

Two Senate Republicans are standing in the way of efforts to eliminate a major DEI program that gives no-bid federal contracts to &#8220;socially disadvantaged&#8221; groups, a letter obtained by The Daily Wire shows.
Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan wrote to agencies saying that a race-based program that removes competition for federal contracts for racial minorities &#8220;has reflected conservative, market-based principles by empowering small businesses to compete, grow, and succeed.&#8221; They said a Republican request that agencies review past contracts for &#8220;potential fraud&#8221; was &#8220;premature&#8221; and &#8220;unsupported by established facts.&#8221;
The Trump administration&#8217;s Small Business Administration moved to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-crack-down-on-minority-contracting-schemes-d-c-s-worst-kept-secret" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rein in</a> the federal minority contracting program, known as 8(a), after a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-official-three-contractors-plead-guilty-to-half-billion-dollar-bribery-scheme" target="_blank" rel="noopener">black businessman bribed</a> a USAID official for half a billion dollars in contracts — a bribe the official could make good on only because contracts to minorities can be handed out at will instead of based on a showing of best value.
In October, James O&#8217;Keefe&#8217;s <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1981042870460252398" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Citizen Journalism Foundation</a> captured officials from a white-led, but ostensibly Native American contractor, bragging about how they got a $100 million contract using minority preference and simply found someone else to do the actual work for a small portion of that. Follow-up reporting featured members of the Native American tribe bemoaning that outsiders were abusing the tribe&#8217;s name to <a href="https://x.com/jamesokeefeiii/status/1988770902243176767?s=42" target="_blank" rel="noopener">enrich</a> themselves, while tribe members lived in poverty.
Alaska Natives get even more preferential treatment than black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans, allowing them to run multibillion-dollar defense contractor companies while getting benefits initially designed for small, disadvantaged firms.
In December, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), chair of the Senate Small Business Committee, which has jurisdiction over the program, wrote to agencies <a href="https://www.ernst.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/12082025sba8aprogramfinalletters.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">asking them</a> to &#8220;immediately pause all 8(a) sole-source contracting&#8221; and &#8220;examine all 8(a) set-aside contracts awarded by your agency since FY 20 for any violation of laws and regulations,&#8221; noting that the Biden administration raised the goal for minority contracts to 15%.
For years, inquiries have flagged fraud and abuse in such arrangements, but Alaska Republicans have used their disproportionate power in the Senate to make the topic off-limits. The now-deceased Ted Stevens was an Alaska Republican who chaired the Senate&#8217;s Appropriations Committee for years, and Murkowski now sits on the committee.
Before the DEI craze captured Democrats, it wasn&#8217;t partisan to point out waste and abuse. In 2010, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) found abuse similar to what was highlighted by O&#8217;Keefe. But Murkowski &#8220;immediately sprung into action, lodging objections&#8221; to McCaskill&#8217;s effort to reform the program. McCaskill <a href="https://www.murkowski.senate.gov/press/article/mccaskill-retreats-attack-on-tribal-contracting" target="_blank" rel="noopener">folded</a>, but said, “Reform in this area is going to happen. It’s not a matter of if, but a matter of when.&#8221;
In the time since, little has changed. In 2011, The Washington Post reported that a D.C. lawyer named Paralee White had used the Alaska program to land more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/dc-insiders-can-reap-fortunes-from-federal-programs-for-small-businesses/2011/02/09/AB1NRJS_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$500 million</a> in military contracts and pay her family members lavish salaries. The Post noted, &#8220;Significantly for White, the subsidiaries set up by the corporations to receive contracts did not have to operate in Alaska or even be run by natives. They just had to be 51 percent owned by Alaska Natives, and they could hire nonnative subcontractors to do much of the work.&#8221;
In <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/national/2010/09/30/bethesda-consultant-made-millions-with-alaska-firm/e9187e20-cc34-11df-8eee-2e1a26a3708e/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">another case</a>, a Bethesda, Maryland, man was paid $15 million to run an Alaskan government contractor for three years, while Alaska Natives received a total of $682,000 in dividends in 2009, or $305 each. The company won a contract to make military uniforms, which it manufactured in Puerto Rico instead of Alaska.
Sullivan and Murkowski did not publicize their letters to federal agencies, which goes against Republican orthodoxy when it comes to DEI and fraud and waste. A spokesman for Murkowski, Joseph Plesha, did not respond when The Daily Wire asked about the letter.
The inquiry asked: &#8220;Do you think the SBA and agencies have done a sufficient job rooting out abuse? If not, what are some examples that you&#8217;ve uncovered through your oversight? Do you support 8(a) for all minorities or only Alaskan natives?&#8221;
It also asked whether the type of Alaska Native Corporation that Murkowski holds up as a success includes Bowhead, virtually all of whose <a href="https://www.bowhead.com/executive-team/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">executives are white men</a>. Bowhead is technically an arm of an Alaskan tribe, but it is headquartered in the D.C. suburbs, and its family of high-tech defense contractors looks and operates like Northrop Grumman or Lockheed Martin — but without having to compete with them on price.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1026861" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-scaled.jpg" alt="" width="2560" height="1535" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-300x180.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-961x576.jpg 961w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-768x460.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-1536x921.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/01/bowhead-2048x1228.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px" /></div>
A spokeswoman for Sen. Sullivan, Amanda Coyne, also did not respond to a Daily Wire inquiry requesting data showing that such firms were actually staffed by Alaska Natives.
The letter said the 8(a) program &#8220;reduces administrative burden, shortens acquisition timelines, and avoids the delays and litigation risks that often accompany large-scale procurements. Further, as two Senators who care about the readiness of our military, we consistently hear from top Pentagon officials that the 8(a) Program provides flexibility and timeliness in procuring weapons systems that strengthen our country.&#8221;
The reason that some government officials like using 8(a) contracting is that they do not have to bother with competing for the work, a process designed to get the highest quality and lowest cost. Instead, they can simply choose who they want to give it to. At times, that includes the implicit understanding that the supposedly disadvantaged firm will subcontract much of the work to a traditional firm.
The 8(a) program is also facing court challenges, particularly after recent Supreme Court decisions made it likely that elements of it are unconstitutional. Multiple injunctions have been put in place by judges, and a lawsuit by lawyers from the Center for Individual Rights and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has recently been filed on behalf of white people who were left out in the cold.
Dan Lennington, the director of the Wisconsin group&#8217;s Equality Under the Law Project, told The Daily Wire, &#8220;There is simply no question that the 8(a) program has been the source of significant waste, fraud, and abuse. The program was designed for &#8216;economically disadvantaged&#8217; small business owners, yet our clients have reported that these limits are not enforced and easily evaded, meaning that high net-worth individuals often scoop up preferences and sole-source contracts.&#8221;
&#8220;Moreover, the Section 8(a) program has been tainted with unconstitutional racial preferences, including racial preferences for &#8216;Alaska Natives,&#8217; which Senators Murkowski and Sullivan undoubtedly support. Federal law defines this category based on &#8216;blood,&#8217; &#8216;bloodlines,&#8217; and &#8216;minimum blood quantum,&#8217; all of which constitute unconstitutional racial categorizations. SBA should vigorously enforce the President&#8217;s Executive Orders, which require all agencies to eliminate racial preferences, including those remaining in Section 8(a),&#8221; he continued.
Murkowski and Sullivan&#8217;s letter read:
<blockquote>Fraud, waste, and abuse have no place in federal programs, and any participant who violates the law should be held fully accountable. However, we write to express serious concern with recent, unsubstantiated attacks on the Small Business Administration&#8217;s (SBA) 8(a) Business Development Program and the request that federal agencies halt all 8(a) sole-source awards absent verified findings of wrongdoing.
On December 8, 2025, the Chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship sent letters to 22 federal agencies urging a pause on future 8(a) sole-source awards and a review of prior awards based on allegations of &#8220;potential fraud.&#8221; These requests are premature, unsupported by established facts, and risk significant harm to federal missions and thousands of compliant small businesses that lawfully participate in this program. Broad, sensationalized allegations leveled before the completion of any investigation amount to a presumption of guilt and undermine fundamental principles of due process.
For more than 40 years, the 8(a) Program, authorized under Section 8(a) of the Small Business Act, has been one of the federal government&#8217;s most effective tools for promoting entrepreneurship and economic mobility for disadvantaged communities. Participating firms routinely deliver high-quality, specialized services, achieve strong Contractor Performance Assessment Reporting System (CPARS) performance ratings, and provide agencies with cost-effective, timely procurement options. The program reduces administrative burden, shortens acquisition timelines, and avoids the delays and litigation risks that often accompany large-scale procurements. Further, as two Senators who care about the readiness of our military, we consistently hear from top Pentagon officials that the 8(a) Program provides flexibility and timeliness in procuring weapons systems that strengthen our country.
We fully support targeted, evidence-based oversight that identifies and removes bad actors. We cannot support sweeping actions that jeopardize thousands of legitimate businesses, many of which perform mission-critical work for your agency and others across the federal government.
Accordingly, we urge you to continue utilizing the 8(a) Program consistent with existing law and regulation, while allowing any appropriate reviews to proceed in an orderly and fact-driven manner. For decades, this program has reflected conservative, market-based principles by empowering small businesses to compete, grow, and succeed, rather than expanding government dependence on bureaucracy.</blockquote>
Editor&#8217;s note: Luke Rosiak <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/luke-rosiak-testifies-at-us-senate-hearing" target="_blank" rel="noopener">testified</a> to the Senate Committee on Small Business about 8(a) contract abuse.

Sens. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

Alaska Republicans Secretly Working To Protect Fraud-Plagued DEI Program

Alaska

General

Lisa Murkowski

Minority Contracting

U.S.

U.S. Senate

While Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer kept the federal government shut down, the radical Left was hard at work in California crusading against the patriots who feed and clothe our country.
The latest episode in Governor Gavin Newsom’s war against agriculture comes in the form of redistributing agricultural land in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
The California Agricultural Land Equity Task Force is thinking up clever ways to steal land from hardworking farmers, ranchers, and agricultural producers to pay reparations to tribes and other minorities in the form of land. Even more troubling, they doubtless plan to use this scheme as a template for future use at the national level.
We won’t allow it.
That’s why on December 11, I sent a <a href="https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/usda-letter-gov-newsom-ca-ag-land-equity-121125.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to Governor Newsom outlining the substantial constitutional issues with the Task Force’s <a href="https://sgc.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/Full-Report-ADA-FINAL-CLEAN.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">draft report</a>.
In that letter, I note that “the right to own private property and our nation’s agricultural heritage are an inseparable cornerstone of the American dream and ingrained in the very fabric of our nation. The pursuit of a noble lifestyle in agriculture should transcend the pernicious identity-based politics that only serves to drive division.”
I am demanding that Governor Newsom reject and abandon any attempt to pursue the illegal recommendations in the Task Force’s report. It is unconscionable that hardworking farmers are being demeaned and shut out of opportunities simply because they don’t meet the state’s definition of “equity.”
No matter your family history, culture, or skin color, you should have equal access to government programs that can help you pursue the most American way of life: agriculture.
In the report, California proposes incentivizing the transfer of both public and private agricultural lands exclusively to tribal nations, African Americans who are the descendants of slaves, and certain other minorities.
But the blatant disregard for justice doesn’t stop there.
The report also recommends the development of local ordinances to restrict citizens from purchasing land unless they are part of a certain minority group.
This policy would encourage the state and nonprofits to outbid legacy farms at auction and then only offer agricultural leases back to minority farmers after the purchase. Tax credits, debt forgiveness, special funding, and even priority in important farm conservation programs would only be allowed to benefit a few select minority demographics.
In a move we’ve come to expect from the radical left, the report even encourages the adoption of laws requiring “climate”-related agricultural practices for the new minority landowners.
Some might be tempted to dismiss this report as a pipe dream. That would be a mistake.
Newsom and his cronies are reckless fools, but they mean business. This report is thought out and comprehensive.
California agriculture is an economic powerhouse. On its own, it ranks as the world’s fifth-largest supplier of food. That’s why what happens to agriculture in California is vitally important for the rest of the country.
Make no mistake, the proposal being discussed right now would not only hurt farmers in California, but every American.
While the Trump administration is working hard to reduce the price of food across the nation, Gavin Newsom is concocting new ways to drive up food inflation.
This radical DEI agenda needs to be stopped in its tracks, immediately. We are committed to fighting for all farmers, ranchers, and agricultural producers — no matter their ZIP code.
Brooke Rollins is the 33rd Secretary of Agriculture.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

US-POLITICS-HEALTH-CHILDREN-NEWSOM

Gavin Newsom’s DEI Land Grab Is An Assault On American Farmers

brooke rollins

Gavin Newsom

Secretary of Agriculture

Daily Wire Investigative Reporter Luke Rosiak details his reporting on governmental waste and fraud before Congress, controversy swirls around Zohran Mamdani’s administration-to-be, and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) gives us an inside look at Minnesota’s fraud scandal.
It’s Thursday, December 11, 2025, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. Today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below, and the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-251211-member-exclusive">video version can be seen on The Daily Wire</a>:
<iframe style="width: 100%; max-width: 660px; overflow: hidden; border-radius: 10px;" src="https://embed.podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dei-fraud-exposed-mamdanis-radical-moves-12-11-25/id1576594336?i=1000740820041" height="175" frameborder="0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-popups allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-storage-access-by-user-activation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation"></iframe>
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Senate Digs Into DEI Fraud</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1013133" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/8a-Ate-Billions.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The Senate is investigating a multi-billion-dollar DEI fraud scheme, as the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates, sending markets soaring. 
Senate drills into DEI: The Small Business Administration’s 8(a) program was initially intended to offer support for those deemed “socially and economically disadvantaged.” Under the Biden administration, federal agencies were instructed to ensure 15% of all contracts were given to businesses operated by minorities or women, meaning billions of taxpayer dollars were awarded based on race and gender in what became one of the largest DEI programs in the country.
Not only was the program intentionally excluding people based on race, but it was also ripe with fraud. Daily Wire Investigative Reporter Luke Rosiak documented countless cases in which minority business owners would win a contract, then outsource all the work to non-minority-owned businesses, pocketing most of the money in the process.
On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Small Business held a hearing to address the fraud, and Rosiak testified about his findings.
“8A creates a random group of influence peddlers who like lobbyists, get rich by selling their access to government insiders to the benefit of big businesses, while driving up the cost for all of us. This is the kind of thing people hate about Washington. You owe it to voters to end this program,” <a href="https://x.com/realDailyWire/status/1998848540135555157?s=20">said</a> Rosiak.
Interest rates: On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve Board voted to cut interest rates by a quarter point to the 3.5%-3.75% range. That means rates have now come down by nearly 2% over the last year and a half. They’re now at their lowest point in more than three years.
There was not unanimous agreement from the voting members of the Fed Board. For the first time in six years, three of the twelve officials cast dissenting votes, with two saying cuts weren’t needed, and one saying the cut should be bigger.
Essentially, the disagreement stems from whether the Fed should prioritize the labor market, which has slowed significantly, or inflation, which remains well above the target range of 2%. Typically, rates are raised when inflation is high, and lowered when the labor market is cool. Ultimately, the Fed Board, led by Chair Jerome Powell, viewed the labor market as a more pressing matter, and said these cuts would help with hiring and unemployment. 
<h2 style="text-align: center;">Mamdani’s Rule Already Stirring Controversy</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1013135" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Mamdani-Doubles-Down.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: As New York City braces for a seismic shift in leadership with democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani taking the helm as mayor next month, a wave of controversy is erupting over his early moves.
Many political pundits, particularly those on the Right, warned that Mamdani would endanger public safety and undermine law enforcement, and now they say they’re seeing evidence for these claims even before he has officially taken office.
One of the most talked-about moves came just days ago, when Mamdani put out a video addressed to immigrants living in New York City. In it, he <a href="https://x.com/Bubblebathgirl/status/1997801475066745259?s=20">told</a> viewers they have the right to “stand up to ICE.”
Critics argue this goes beyond merely explaining constitutional rights. Some say it could embolden illegal aliens, even those with criminal records, to resist or evade lawful ICE action.
Mamdani’s transition: The transition team has been an explosive topic as Mamdani has tapped Mysonne Linen to be a key voice on justice reform on the “Committee on the Criminal Legal System.”
Linen was once a rising hip-hop star signed to Def Jam. But in 1999, he was convicted of two armed robberies where he held up taxi drivers at gunpoint. He served seven years and was paroled in 2006.
He then rebranded as a Black Lives Matter activist and co-founded Until Freedom with Linda Sarsour, a controversial pro-Palestinian activist who has also served as a Mamdani advisor.
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The choice has driven law enforcement apoplectic. Correction officers’ union head Benny Boscio called it “disheartening and deeply disturbing.” Retired NYPD brass such as John Chell see a pattern with Mamdani filling his team with anti-cop firebrands like black nationalist Lumumba Bandele, defund-the-police guru Alex Vitale, and others.
Mamdani says he just wants a broad array of “experiences and analysis” to draw from.
<h2 style="text-align: center;">What’s Behind The Massive Somali Fraud Scandal?</h2>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1013137" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe-300x169.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="169" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/12/Congressional-Minnesota-Probe.jpg 1920w" sizes=" (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Topline: The sweeping fraud allegations coming out of Minnesota have sparked demands for more investigations and further action from political leaders in D.C. to protect against billions more in taxpayer dollars getting funneled into the hands of fraudsters. Morning Wire spoke with House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who represents Minnesota’s 6th congressional district, about the scandal. (This interview has been lightly edited.)
Morning Wire: We have this massive fraud scandal continuing to unravel this week. What do you believe were the most critical oversight failures within the Walz administration? And how should Minnesota restructure its safeguards to prevent this from happening again?
Emmer: The first thing you do is you got to get rid of [Minnesota Democratic Governor] Tim Walz and [Minnesota Attorney General] Keith Ellison and [Congresswoman] Ilhan Omar. I mean, there&#8217;s your biggest structural problem right there. Let me put some context around this for your viewers, your listeners. … The facts are this: today, there are roughly 80,000 Somali immigrants that are living in Minnesota. The vast majority of them live in Minneapolis or Hennepin County–an area called Cedar-Riverside. … Tim Walz and Keith Ellison cannot get votes in greater Minnesota. Think about this: in the last election, Tim Walz outspent the Republican candidates $15 million to $1.7 million, and he won with 52%, just over 52% of the vote. If you look a little deeper, we have 87 counties. Tim Walz only won the 13 metro counties. We&#8217;ll go a little farther. If you look at the 74 counties that he lost, he got 37% of the vote, including losing his former congressional seat by eight points. So, what is this about? This is about the fact that when he and Keith Ellison took office, Keith Ellison instantly set up a policy in his attorney general&#8217;s office that required his approval before any further investigations into fraud could go forward. Guess what? He&#8217;s never approved one of them. … And it&#8217;s not that all Somali immigrants are bad. It just so happens that 90% of the crimes we&#8217;re talking about have been committed by people that are in the Somali community. And by the way, they have been sending millions back to Somalia into the hands of Al-Shabaab, a known terrorist group. So, if you look at Keith Ellison, he won by a little less than one point in his last election. What is this all about? This is all about them getting re-elected. They need that 60 to 80,000 Somali population. They need them to be voting for them. That&#8217;s what this is all about.
Morning Wire: You mentioned the word accountability. We do have some individual actors being convicted, but what about on the government level? What about some of these officials? Is there any action being taken to hold people accountable if they looked the other way knowingly? What investigations are going on with that, and what do you hope to see pursued?
Emmer: Look, I think our U.S. Justice Department is starting to pick up where Minnesota should have been involved investigating not only the fraud but who might have been not just incompetent but actively engaged in the fraud because they should be criminally held, criminally responsible. You&#8217;ve got Dr. Oz, who&#8217;s investigating a fraud on the Medicaid program. You&#8217;ve got Kelly Loeffler, who&#8217;s investigating fraud in the SBA program. You got Kash Patel, who&#8217;s busy with his team investigating Somali gangs that have frankly been running rampant in the Twin Cities committing crimes and no one will hold them accountable for it.

MRN_251211_V2

Morning Brief: DEI Fraud Exposed, Mamdani’s Radical Moves, & Minnesota Scandal Reveals Fault Lines

Morning Brief: Senate Digs Into DEI, Mamdani Picks Stoke Controversy, And The Politics Of MN Fraud

Federal Reserve

Jerome Powell

Keith Ellison

Minnesota

Morning Wire

New York City

Tim Walz

Zohran Mamdani

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier has filed <a href="https://aboutblaw.com/bknd">suit</a> against Starbucks, claiming they “used DEI to implement illegal race-based policies for hiring and advancement.”
“Using DEI as an excuse to hire, promote, or humiliate an employee based on race violates Florida&#8217;s civil rights law, and we just filed a lawsuit to hold Starbucks accountable,” he wrote on X.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Starbucks used DEI to implement illegal race-based policies for hiring and advancement. 
Using DEI as an excuse to hire, promote, or humiliate an employee based on race violates Florida&#39;s civil rights law, and we just filed a lawsuit to hold Starbucks accountable. <a href="https://t.co/e3pK0GguQ0">pic.twitter.com/e3pK0GguQ0</a>
&mdash; Attorney General James Uthmeier (@AGJamesUthmeier) <a href="https://twitter.com/AGJamesUthmeier/status/1998796682289365005?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 10, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The suit claims Starbucks implemented policies and programs over the past five years that favor certain racial groups while discriminating against others, including white, Asian, and multiracial employees, in violation of Florida’s Civil Rights Act. The Attorney General emphasized that using DEI as justification for race-based hiring, promotion, or workplace treatment violates the state’s civil rights laws.
The lawsuit, filed in the circuit court of Florida’s 10th Judicial District, details multiple allegations. Starbucks is accused of establishing racial quotas and goals for hiring, paying employees differently based on race, tying executive compensation to race-based mentorship programs and retention of favored racial groups, and excluding certain races from networking and mentorship opportunities.
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Uthmeier notes that civil rights protections extend to all individuals, and promoting diversity does not excuse discrimination against any group. This legal challenge follows previous cases in which Starbucks faced liability for allegedly disfavoring nonminority employees, including a $25.6 million jury award to a white employee.
Starbucks, incorporated in Washington with a certificate to operate in Florida, employs 381,000 people nationwide and operates 934 stores in Florida, including at least one in Highlands County. The suit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief, damages, and civil penalties under the Florida Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employers from discriminating in hiring, compensation, promotions, or other employment conditions based on race. Florida law mirrors federal civil rights protections, which also recognize “reverse discrimination” against nonminority groups as unlawful.
The complaint outlines specific discriminatory practices at Starbucks, including:
<ol>
<li data-start="2180" data-end="2368">Race-based hiring: Starbucks has publicly set hiring goals for people of color in retail, distribution, and corporate roles and tied executive performance to achieving these targets.</li>
<li data-start="2372" data-end="2617">Race-based compensation: Employees of certain races are reportedly paid more than others with comparable experience, and promotion increases can be influenced by race. Executives reportedly plan to maintain these race-based pay policies indefinitely.</li>
<li data-start="2621" data-end="2879">Executive bonuses tied to race metrics: Executive pay has been linked to mentoring BIPOC employees and retaining employees of favored races. Even after 2024 adjustments in language to focus on “belonging,” race-based numerical targets remain in effect.</li>
<li data-start="2883" data-end="3151">Exclusive mentorship and networking: Starbucks created programs explicitly limited to certain racial groups, while reports from Florida employees indicate these policies have caused humiliation, exclusion, and a hostile work environment for disfavored employees.</li>
</ol>
The attorney general argues that these practices have caused substantial harm to Florida residents, including lost wages, denied promotions, and exclusion from professional development opportunities, as well as broader economic impacts. The suit emphasizes that Starbucks’ policies constitute a “pattern or practice of discrimination” affecting thousands of employees across the state.
The lawsuit requests the court to declare Starbucks’ policies discriminatory, permanently enjoin the company from race-based employment actions, impose civil penalties of up to $10,000 per violation (potentially amounting to tens of millions of dollars), and award compensatory and punitive damages for the harm inflicted on Florida employees.

MixCollage-10-Dec-2025-01-39-PM-1866

Florida Attorney General Sues Starbucks Over DEI Policies

Florida AG Sues Starbucks Over Alleged Race-Based Hiring, Pay, And Mentorship Policies

Florida

James Uthmeier

Starbucks

WASHINGTON—Daily Wire investigative reporter Luke Rosiak will testify before the United States Senate Wednesday afternoon on a federal DEI program riddled with waste, fraud, and abuse.
Rosiak will address lawmakers during a Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee hearing titled &#8220;Running Government Like a Small Business: Cut Waste, Crush Fraud.&#8221; He will speak on the 8(a) program, one of the largest and oldest DEI initiatives in the country, which affects contracts at almost all federal agencies. Rosiak has led the charge in exposing problems with 8(a), which sets aside government contracts for firms run by members of certain &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; classes, largely racial and ethnic minorities.
The hearing will begin at 2:30 p.m. ET. and will be streamed live on The Daily Wire.
Rosiak, who last month won the<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/daily-wires-luke-rosiak-wins-investigative-journalism-award-for-best-doge-reporting" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> 2025 Dao Prize</a> for his work covering extraordinary government waste, has exposed countless<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/core-part-of-minority-contracting-program-is-illegal-judge-said?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=5&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=The+Core+Part+Of+This+Federal+Race-Based+Contracting+Program+Is+Illegal%2C+Judge+Says" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> 8(a) program abuses.</a> The Department of Justice found that the 8(a) program had been exploited to carry out a<a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/usaid-official-and-three-corporate-executives-plead-guilty-decade-long-bribery-scheme" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> $550 million bribery scheme</a> over several decades. The program became vulnerable to abuse through &#8220;pass-through&#8221; fraud, in which minority-owned businesses would win a federal contract through a no-bid process, collect a cut of the funds, and then subcontract another company to do the actual work needed for the contract.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler are investigating the misuse, which independent journalist James O&#8217;Keefe describes as a potential <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1980344367014429114" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$100 billion scandal</a>.
The upcoming hearing aims to highlight the full extent of the waste, fraud, and abuse that investigators say took place. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA), who chairs the small business committee, recently introduced the<a href="https://www.ernst.senate.gov/news/press-releases/ernst-introduces-bill-to-halt-fraud-filled-sba-program" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Stop 8(a) Contracting Fraud Act</a> to place a hold on all new no-bid federal contracts until the 8(a) program, dramatically expanded under President Joe Biden as part of a DEI initiative, undergoes a full audit.
While Rosiak will focus on fraud within the 8(a) program, two other witnesses will address additional areas of waste, including misuse of COVID funds and USAID grants: Open the Books CEO John Hart, and Courtney LaFountain, Acting Director of the Government Accountability Office.
“If a small business treated their finances like the government treats tax dollars, they would go out of business,” Ernst said. “This has always been an issue in Washington, but under Joe Biden it became an all-you-can-eat buffet of waste, fraud, and abuse with criminals and con artists cashing in while hardworking Americans were left out in the cold. I look forward to hearing from our expert witnesses on where Congress should focus our continued efforts to downsize the bloated bureaucracy, increase government efficiency, and best serve small businesses.”

IMG_3502

Daily Wire’s Luke Rosiak Will Testify Before The Senate On Massive Federal DEI Scheme

Daily Wire

Fraud

Joni Ernst

Luke Rosiak

Senate

The Small Business Administration on Friday ordered all companies that get preference for government contracts due to their status as &#8220;socially disadvantaged&#8221; minorities to provide detailed financial information to show they are not defrauding the program, The Daily Wire has learned.
The change represents a move to reevaluate a decades-old program that Washington insiders have long recognized as openly corrupt. The 8(a) program is one of the largest and oldest DEI initiatives in the country, affecting contracts at almost all federal agencies.
SBA administrator Kelly Loeffler said there is mounting evidence that minority contracts had become &#8220;a pass-through vehicle for rampant abuse and fraud,&#8221; especially after the Biden administration raised the target for contracts that are &#8220;set aside&#8221; for minorities from 5% to 15% of all contracting dollars.
&#8220;We&#8217;re committed to thoroughly reviewing every federal contract, contracting officer, and contractor — while working alongside federal law enforcement,&#8221; she said.
The records will shed light on the extent to which companies are subcontracting out the work to non-&#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; firms, while keeping a cut for serving as a middleman or &#8220;front&#8221; company. That would defeat the purpose of the program and result in higher prices for government services across the board.
Undercover journalist James O&#8217;Keefe caught employees from one such firm boasting that they did exactly that. <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1981042870460252398" target="_blank" rel="noopener">O’Keefe Media Group</a> published a video exposing ATI Government Solutions, an 8(a) firm based on Native American ownership that is run by whites. Anish Abraham, senior director at ATI Government Solutions, acknowledged that his company was a “pass-through” that got a $100 million contract, kept $65 million, and paid another firm $35 million to do the work.
Such reports &#8220;have raised questions about widespread misconduct within the 8(a) Business Development Program, adding to years of credible concerns that the program designed to serve &#8216;socially and economically disadvantaged&#8217; businesses has become a vehicle for institutionalized abuse at taxpayer expense,&#8221; the SBA wrote to each of the 4,300 &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; contractors.
The letter, exclusively obtained by The Daily Wire, requires that the companies upload their general ledger, bank statements, payroll register, subcontracting agreements, and other detailed internal information to the agency. Those who do not comply by January 5 risk losing their eligibility for contracts.
Most of the records are requested in the computer-friendly CSV format, which may suggest a plan to use artificial intelligence to help find &#8220;pass-through&#8221; abuse.
Loeffler said SBA&#8217;s top-to-bottom review of the so-called 8(a) minority contracting program, which has been in place since 1978, began in June after a criminal case revealed that one such firm had received more than <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-official-three-contractors-plead-guilty-to-half-billion-dollar-bribery-scheme" target="_blank" rel="noopener">half a billion dollars in USAID contracts</a> after bribing a government official with $1 million.
The 8(a) program is also called &#8220;set-aside&#8221; contracting because contracts are set aside from open competition and can be &#8220;sole-sourced&#8221; to a specific company, without needing to show that it&#8217;s the best qualified or provides the best value.
Without the 8(a) program, the contracting officer would have had difficulty following through on the bribe because he would be tasked with running a competition and awarding the work to the firm that was objectively best.
Pleading guilty were USAID official Roderick Watson; Walter Barnes, founder of Vistant, a company whose business model was getting contracts based on &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; status and pairing with other companies who did the work; and Darryl Britt, founder of 8(a) form Apprio Inc. Britt was, at the time of his guilty plea, a member of Carnegie Mellon University&#8217;s Business Board of Advisers.
A mark of how minority set-aside contractors routinely game the system is how small companies receive contracts for widely divergent fields of work — a sign that they are simply having others do it or hiring staff afterwards with little knowledge of the subject area. Apprio’s contracts with government agencies range from developing websites to medical care to human resources to “ebola efforts.”
Other USAID contracts to Vistant include a $15 million contract “to help protect cyberspace and communications network domains to block the spread of insecure information.” A $28 million USAID contract was for “lab institutional contractor – mega bridge contract,” and a $40 million contract was for “creation of the PDEX award.” A $204,000 contract was for a “senior advisor to the Belarus country director.”
Even after Barnes&#8217;s misconduct had been detected, a joint venture between Vistant and a &#8220;small business&#8221; operating out of a home, called CollaborateUp, was awarded potential work up to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-800m-migration-feds-bribes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$800 million</a> to solve &#8220;the root causes of irregular migration from Central America to the United States.&#8221;
Since the O&#8217;Keefe exposé of ATI Government Solutions, whose <a href="https://atisolutions.us/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a> openly advertised its main selling point as its ability to easily win government contracts through its affiliation with a Native American tribe, the SBA suspended the firm and a slew of others tied to its chief executive, Firmadge Crutchfield, who is white.
Tribe members <a href="https://x.com/jamesokeefeiii/status/1988770902243176767?s=42" target="_blank" rel="noopener">emotionally said</a> they were victims of the pass-through scheme, and that if a contracting program intended to steer work to Native Americans, that work should actually be done by Native Americans.
The minority set-aside program will need to be re-evaluated anyway because of recent <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/core-part-of-minority-contracting-program-is-illegal-judge-said" target="_blank" rel="noopener">court rulings</a> blocking the government from doling out benefits based on race.

Kelly Loeffler, U.S. President Donald Trump’s Administrator of the Small Business Administration. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Trump Orders All Beneficiaries Of The Largest DEI Program To Turn Over Internal Financial Records

Small Business Administration

A judge in 2021 ruled that a key part of the government&#8217;s multibillion-dollar minority contracting program was illegal, potentially giving the Trump administration inroads to kill the fraud-ridden program.
In 1953, Congress instructed the Small Business Administration to reserve some federal contracts for &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; businesses. Beginning in 1986, SBA counted businesses owned by racial minorities as &#8220;presumptively&#8221; disadvantaged. That meant instead of an applicant having to show that he had actually faced discrimination, he simply needed to show his race. The result was the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-crack-down-on-minority-contracting-schemes-d-c-s-worst-kept-secret?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Feds+Crack+Down+On+Minority+Contracting+Schemes%2C+D.C.%E2%80%99s+Worst-Kept+Secret">8(a) program</a>, a sprawling DEI enterprise that has impacted every aspect of government.
That continued even during the first Trump administration. In one case in 2018, the Department of Agriculture reserved work on a particular project for &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; businesses, even though it internally acknowledged that doing so would cause an &#8220;adverse impact&#8221; on Ultima Services Corp, which had been doing similar work for the agency for years.
Ultima <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tned.93612/gov.uscourts.tned.93612.1.0_1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> in March 2020, alleging anti-white discrimination, but the Trump administration fought it, filing a motion to <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tned.93612/gov.uscourts.tned.93612.20.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dismiss</a> in July 2020.
Documents unearthed through that lawsuit revealed that even though the government claimed being a racial minority merely provided a &#8220;rebuttable presumption&#8221; that someone had experienced discrimination that &#8220;could be overcome with credible evidence to the contrary,&#8221; it had no mechanism for someone to actually rebut it. That means even &#8220;nepo babies&#8221; and people who worked in industries where their race never experienced discrimination were put on the fast track to government contracts.
A &#8220;socially and economically disadvantaged small business&#8221; is one that is at least 51% owned by a disadvantaged person. So, soon people began forming 51-49 partnerships where one person&#8217;s role was essentially to be a racial minority so contracts could be awarded to the company with no competition, while the other provided the actual expertise and work.
That leads to increased prices, because the firms essentially have to pay a middleman&#8217;s fee. It also generates a worse work product, since the government isn&#8217;t seeking multiple bids and choosing the best.
James O&#8217;Keefe recently captured an executive from one such business admitting to <a href="https://x.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1981042870460252398" target="_blank" rel="noopener">being a &#8220;pass-through&#8221;</a> that collected tens of millions of dollars by being a Native American-owned company that got government contracts and subcontracted the work to others, and SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/feds-crack-down-on-minority-contracting-schemes-d-c-s-worst-kept-secret">full review</a> of the 8(a) contracting program is underway.
Discovery in the Ultima lawsuit showed that SBA has never removed a group from &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; status, making it a permanent reparations program instead of one that worked to offset past discrimination for a specific period of time.
It also revealed that SBA made no effort to determine whether specific minority groups had faced discrimination in specific industries. It simply assumed that all minority groups were disadvantaged in all fields — even giving Indians a leg up in computer science, a field in which they have been dramatically overrepresented for its entire history.
During the course of the lawsuit, SBA implemented a rule that said people would no longer be considered disadvantaged “if their net worth exceeds $850,000, their adjusted gross income exceeds $400,000, or their total assets exceed $6.5 million.” Ultima said those thresholds &#8220;only disqualify the richest individuals.&#8221;
The Biden administration continued fighting the lawsuit, while President Joe Biden increased the goal for minority &#8220;set-asides&#8221; from 5% of all federal contracts to 15%.
But in July 2023, Judge Clifton Corker, a Trump appointee in the Eastern District of Tennessee, <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tned.93612/gov.uscourts.tned.93612.86.0_1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ruled</a> that assuming every minority was disadvantaged in every field was illegal, especially after Supreme Court precedent such as the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions case that ruled that affirmative action was illegal in colleges.
Biden&#8217;s excesses in flagrant racial favoritism led to court rulings that didn&#8217;t exist years prior, and included ruling against a program — also administered by the SBA — that prioritized minorities for coronavirus aid.
Corker wrote that &#8220;The Supreme Court has held that the government has a compelling interest in &#8216;remediating specific, identified instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute.&#8217;” SBA never identified specific instances of racism that it was addressing, but merely provided nationwide statistics that showed minorities earning less money generally.
Ultima said the list of minorities given preference is essentially random, including Indian Americans, who out-earn whites, while excluding Arab Americans. Corker said SBA also &#8220;does not consider other groups, such as Hasidic Jews who have faced similarly appalling discrimination, eligible for the rebuttable presumption of social disadvantage.&#8221;
The government must identify “prior discrimination by the governmental unit involved” or “passive participation in a system of racial exclusion” before it “embark[ed] on an affirmative-action program,” Corker said, citing precedent.
SBA argued that &#8220;the presumption is flexible because it may be overcome with evidence that an individual is not socially disadvantaged,&#8221; but the judge said he &#8220;struggles to see how that process would work in practice,&#8221; with an SBA employee admitting &#8220;[t]here’s no process for a third party to question someone’s social disadvantage.&#8221;
Judge Corker said precedent requires that a race-conscious program &#8220;must be appropriately limited such that it will not last longer than the discriminatory effects it is designed to eliminate,&#8221; and have a &#8220;logical end point.&#8221; Seventy years after its advent, SBA conceded that &#8220;the 8(a) program has no termination date.&#8221;
&#8220;Defendants have failed to show that the use of the rebuttable presumption in the 8(a) program is narrowly tailored,&#8221; Judge Corker ruled. &#8220;Use of the rebuttable presumption violates Ultima’s Fifth Amendment right to equal protection of the law,&#8221; he said, enjoining the federal government from assuming that minorities are all disadvantaged.
That dealt a massive blow to the government&#8217;s multibillion-dollar DEI contracting regime.
In July 2024, the Biden SBA issued an <a href="https://www.sba.gov/federal-contracting/contracting-assistance-programs/8a-business-development-program/updates-8a-business-development-program" target="_blank" rel="noopener">advisory</a> acknowledging that most 8(a) contracts had been awarded based on the applicant&#8217;s race, with no showing of actual discrimination. It said to receive new contracts under &#8220;disadvantaged&#8221; set-asides, firms would need to &#8220;submit a social disadvantage narrative,&#8221; meaning an essay demonstrating that they are a victim.
It said, &#8220;the examples you include in your social disadvantage narrative can be related to any time in your life but must include detail of how the incident impacted your entry or advancement in the business world.&#8221; Those whose essays pass muster &#8220;will receive a Social Disadvantage Qualification letter.&#8221;
But the Biden administration may have simply sidestepped the injunction, and it is not clear how things have changed in the second Trump administration.
In July 2025, The Daily Wire submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for statistics on whether any minorities were rejected based on their essays, as opposed to disregarding the judge&#8217;s ruling by rubber-stamping them. The Daily Wire also requested copies of the victimhood essays.
Despite legal requirements, the Trump administration has not even acknowledged the FOIA request four months later. It has not responded to numerous follow-up inquiries about how it is dealing with the 8(a) program in light of the Ultima ruling, and spokeswoman Caitlin O&#8217;Dea did not return multiple phone calls.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/usaid-official-three-contractors-plead-guilty-to-half-billion-dollar-bribery-scheme">USAID Official, Three Contractors Plead Guilty To Half-Billion Dollar Minority Contracting Scheme</a>

The Core Part Of This Federal Race-Based Contracting Program Is Illegal, Judge Says

A historically black university whose president is under scrutiny for plagiarism allegations <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/maryland-college-president-heidi-anderson-plagiarized-dissertation">reported on</a> by The Daily Wire is a &#8220;criminal enterprise to divert federal and state funds,&#8221; according to a federal lawsuit filed by the school&#8217;s former Vice Provost for Academic Affairs.
It is one of four similar lawsuits filed in the last few months against the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, its president Heidi Anderson, its provost Rondall Allen, and its diversity, equity, and inclusion czar Jason Casares, that all follow a similar pattern: A faculty member allegedly discovers wrongdoing at the university, and then is retaliated against by the university&#8217;s DEI office.
Claims from the suits paint a picture of a university with almost no academic standards, that admits <a href="https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/school/?163338-University-of-Maryland-Eastern-Shore" target="_blank" rel="noopener">90%</a> of applicants and looks the other way at cheating and truancy to avoid worsening its 17% on-time graduation rate and keep the federal student loan money flowing.
The<a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.587379/gov.uscourts.mdd.587379.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> lawsuit filed July 28</a> by Sandeep Gopalan, a Rhodes scholar who until recently was the school&#8217;s vice president for research and vice provost for academic affairs, said that after he claims to have exposed a scheme by Anderson and other top administrators to steal thousands of iPads, the university axed Gopalan&#8217;s program and Ph.D. students in retaliation.
The students were funded by a $4.6 million grant from the federal Department of Education that Gopalan had secured and the university had no ability to terminate, but it dismissed the scholars anyway, falsely suggesting that the Trump administration had cut off funding to the historically black college, he said.
&#8220;As a result of this blatantly unlawful act, highly valuable research on cancer, environmental pollution, and AI, representing thousands of hours of research work by the Plaintiff, Ph.D. students and research staff has been stopped,&#8221; the suit said.
As part of his duties monitoring compliance for the university&#8217;s accreditor, &#8220;Gopalan learned that Rondall Allen and Heidi Anderson were embezzling iPads intended for poor minorities and diverting those resources to their cronies. The thousands of iPads were purchased from a federal grant awarded by the US Department of Commerce,&#8221; the suit said.
&#8220;After being convinced that the scam was organized criminal activity based on direct observation of the devices’ stealthy storage, destruction of evidence, fraudulent documentation, attempts to trick the auditors, the apparent enablement of concealment by University System of Maryland apparatchiks, Dr. Gopalan sent whistleblower letters to federal agencies, the Maryland Attorney General’s Office, and the Board of Regents of the University System of Maryland in June 2024,&#8221; it said.
Soon after, Anderson began asking if the Ph.D. students in Gopalan&#8217;s Futures Institute program, the highest-performing students at the school, were black. &#8220;Gopalan explained that students were selected based on strict merit, but the projects had a focus on minority populations. Anderson expressed displeasure,&#8221; the suit said.
In December 2024, the lawsuit states he filed additional complaints &#8220;about Heidi Anderson and Rondall Allen’s embezzlement, diversion of federal funds, fraudulent reporting of student data to deceive the government, fraud in connection with physical plant and facilities,&#8221; including to Chancellor Jay Perman, who oversees all public universities in the state.
According to the complaint, &#8220;Anderson and Jason Casares began conspiring to steal Dr. Gopalan’s Futures Institute grant of $4.6 million,&#8221; and notified Ph.D. students that their scholarships were being revoked. The Department of Education had to step in, <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.587379/gov.uscourts.mdd.587379.1.6.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writing</a> that the grant had not been terminated and ordering Maryland to restore it.
The willingness to terminate the university&#8217;s brightest scholars was all the more remarkable because &#8220;UMES has some of the worst student outcomes in the United States under Rondall Allen and Heidi Anderson. The 4-year graduation rate is 17% whereas the 6-year graduation rate is about 35% and graduates’ median incomes are on par with high school graduates. To Dr. Gopalan’s astonishment, Rondall Allen and Dr. Heidi Anderson were indifferent to these outcomes and appeared resentful whenever he mentioned the need to improve,&#8221; it added.
Anderson is a pharmacist, and Allen, another pharmacist, was appointed Provost in 2022. &#8220;Allen has no record of original intellectual publications and had copied and pasted Dr. Gopalan’s work to steal credit,&#8221; the suit said.
The suit asked the court to &#8220;direct the University System of Maryland Board of Regents and the Office of Attorney General to claw back Jay Perman’s $1.4 million salary, Heidi Anderson’s $450,000 salary, and Rondall Allen’s $300,000 salary and proportionate amounts from Casares.&#8221;
On Monday, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown filed a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.587379/gov.uscourts.mdd.587379.15.1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">response</a> in court. It noted that Gopalan was acting as his own lawyer, and sought to have the case dismissed based in part on legal technicalities, the claim that the public college and its officials had &#8220;sovereign immunity,” and that he did not provide enough detail showing he was a victim of intentional racial discrimination.
<h2>&#8216;Private looting opportunity&#8217;</h2>
A <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.587750/gov.uscourts.mdd.587750.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">second lawsuit</a> was filed on August 1 under the pseudonym Jacob Doe, a faculty member who says he &#8220;directly observed the top administrators of the university engaging in criminal activities.&#8221;
When Anderson took over in 2018, UMES had an enrollment of 4,800; it is now only 3,000. The passing rate in Anderson&#8217;s own field of pharmacy fell from 95% to 57%. Allen became provost a few years later, despite a background in &#8220;discount pharmacies, and no record meriting a provost position,&#8221; it said.
&#8220;Plaintiff found one cause of the university’s terrible outcomes: rogue administrators led by the president Heidi Anderson and provost Rondall Allen turning the vast investments by the federal and state governments in the university into a private looting opportunity. Unlike other normal universities where administrators are appointed pursuant to merit, credentials, and experience, at UMES many were appointed based on a propensity for corruption and collusion in Anderson and Allen’s schemes,&#8221; the suit said.
&#8220;After directly witnessing and determining that there was organized criminal activity to siphon off federal and state funds led by Defendant 1 Heidi Anderson and Rondall Allen, in Summer and Fall 2024, Plaintiff filed reports with the USM Chancellor and Board, and state and federal officials. The USM initiated a cosmetic investigation – intended to save Anderson rather than determine the truth,&#8221; it said.
&#8220;Upon learning about the Plaintiff&#8217;s complaints, the Defendants took retaliatory actions under the guise of a fake complaint alleging in December 2024 that the Plaintiff had created a &#8216;hostile working environment&#8217; for one temporary worker whose contract was due to expire in two months&#8221; – an Iranian student who, the complaint claimed, was allowed to stay in the country as a reward for going along with the scheme.
Casares, the DEI director, accused Doe of sexually harassing the temp, even though no evidence was provided that the pair had ever been in a room alone together. Casares himself left his previous job after being <a href="https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/update-iu-administrator-casares-resigns-amid-sexual-assault-claim/531-610f5e2c-e658-4b3b-a008-e7d1df4b7e4c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> of sexual assault; the suit said &#8220;Casares is unemployable in US higher education and his grossly inflated salary and continued promotion by Anderson are bribes&#8221; for &#8220;intimidating faculty and staff who oppose illegal activities.&#8221;
The temp worker&#8217;s primary boss was a different professor, who witnessed every encounter between Doe and the temp, but Casares did not interview him, the suit said.
Casares was accused of telling the temp worker that “people say Turkish women are beautiful, but I prefer Persian women,&#8221; and &#8220;all work and no fun makes [her] a dull girl.&#8221; Doe said that these statements were fabricated, but that they would not meet the standard for sexual harassment even if they were true.
He said the temp worker had falsified timesheets, leading him to admonish her, and the false claim was in retaliation. Nonetheless, Doe was suspended, banned from campus and his students were told that he was fired. He filed a complaint against Casares, which was ignored, he said.
<h2>A grades for illiterates</h2>
A similar <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.589179/gov.uscourts.mdd.589179.1.0.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit was filed on August 22</a> by Ciu Fang, an &#8220;award-winning computer science lecturer&#8221; who said she was retaliated against for raising concerns that University of Maryland Eastern Shore had almost no academic standards and condoned cheating in order to keep student tuition flowing.
With enrollment plummeting, the school seemingly began relying on foreign students from countries like Iran to fill slots. Although the HBCU was a low-performing institution that few Americans wanted to attend, foreigners who wanted to come to America could use it to gain a student visa.
Iranians began taking over the faculty as well, and Asad Azemi became chair of the computer science program. &#8220;Since his arrival, Azemi expressed a preference for hiring Iranians and manipulated hiring processes to create vacancies for his friends,&#8221; the suit said, citing one job search in which 80% of candidates were Iranian.
Azemi took all the course preparation that Fang had created and appropriated it for himself, while pushing her out of a teaching slot after she was unwilling to give students passing grades even if they skipped class and did not know the material, she said.
Fang said the college admitted students with low high school grades and SAT scores, and most proved unable to master the content in her advanced computer science class, with many not showing up to class at all. But when Azemi taught the course, the failure rate was 0%.
&#8220;Many students plagiarized code from the internet and were unable to answer basic syntax questions&#8230; Dr. Azemi awarded nearly all students a grade of B or higher,&#8221; Fang said. &#8220;Azemi encourages cheating and apparently fraudulent practices to maintain a false facade of enrollment to pad his salary and deceive the federal government,&#8221; she added, saying he pressured her to change students&#8217; grades.
On March 31, Fang emailed Chancellor Perman and &#8220;filed a complaint via the USM Fraud Hotline with information about enrollment, grading, and attendance fraud in specific courses,&#8221; but investigators never contacted Fang for more information, she said.
&#8220;Perman knew that he would be embarrassed if the fraud were to be publicly revealed because of scandals at other universities under his watch,&#8221; the suit said.
(The Daily Wire exposed the president of Maryland&#8217;s flagship campus at College Park as a plagiarist<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/university-of-maryland-president-copied-rocket-science-paper-from-aussie-student" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> more than a year ago</a>, but there have been no repercussions.)
Perman&#8217;s assistant merely referred her to Casares, who wrote a report taking Azemi&#8217;s side, without interviewing Fang&#8217;s witnesses, she said. Then Anderson personally <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.589179/gov.uscourts.mdd.589179.1.25_1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">emailed Fang to terminate her</a> without explanation. &#8220;The abrupt unlawful firing whilst the appeal process was ongoing is illegal retaliation,&#8221; Fang said.
Fang said Anderson developed personal animosity toward her years earlier. Fang had also worked as a personal trainer at the school&#8217;s gym, and &#8220;Heidi Anderson, who is obese,&#8221; asked a school coach to help her lose weight. The coach refused to continue helping Anderson due to her poor attitude, and delegated it to Fang. Anderson insisted on losing weight while refusing to do the necessary workouts, and became &#8220;resentful,&#8221; she said.
On October 31, Maryland filed a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.587379/gov.uscourts.mdd.587379.15.1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reply</a> to the federal court that was similar to its motion in the first case, raising technical legal objections without denying specific allegations.
<h2>Director of Human Resources</h2>
The university&#8217;s former Director of Human Resources, Rosalie Hornbuckle, also filed a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.589179/gov.uscourts.mdd.589179.1.13.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">whistleblower complaint</a>, though not a lawsuit. Hornbuckle said she was terminated several months into her job after identifying &#8220;payment to individuals who were placed in fictitious jobs&#8221; and other misconduct.
The complaint alleged a large number of employees remained on paid leave for long periods after being accused of wrongdoing. She said in one case, Casares placed a staff member on paid leave after a complaint of discriminating against white students; six months later, Casares claimed that he had been investigating but had not taken any notes.
As another cited example, a finance employee arrested with a &#8220;large amount of marijuana packaged for sale&#8221; was provided severance instead of simply being terminated; Hornbuckle couldn&#8217;t understand why until learning that he was the nephew of the school&#8217;s budget director, she said.
The Daily Wire previously reported on a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/maryland-college-president-heidi-anderson-plagiarized-dissertation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fourth lawsuit</a>, by former agriculture professor Donna Satterlee, who said that a Kenyan who was &#8220;incapable of writing in English at the level required of university professor&#8221; took over her department and made her do much of the work, while black faculty took credit and received much higher salaries.
After she called for a study that would publish salary information broken down by race, Casares&#8217;s DEI department accused her of bullying her boss, and she was placed on &#8220;transitional terminal leave.&#8221;
On October 31, Maryland’s attorney general filed a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.586969/gov.uscourts.mdd.586969.21.1_1.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reply</a> in court saying that Satterlee signed papers agreeing not to sue the university in exchange for nine months of severance, and that the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission declined to pursue a complaint she filed with it.
<h2>Cyber Warrior Diversity Program</h2>
The Daily Wire separately obtained a contract signed in August 2019 by President Anderson with Lance Andre Lucas for a &#8220;Cyber Warrior Diversity Program.&#8221; The next year, Lucas<a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/baltimore-businessman-lance-lucas-sentenced-18-months-federal-prison-honest-services-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> pleaded guilty</a> to bribing a state lawmaker $42,500 to create a state law pushing such a program, because he anticipated it would benefit his company.
“I’m from Baltimore for real, for real Baltimore … this is the least illegal thing that I’ve ever done,” he told Maryland Delegate Cheryl Glenn as he handed her cash in his Porsche.
The contract signed by Anderson said &#8220;the State of Maryland is paying a total of $10,000 dollars [sic] per student. The Cyber Warrior Diversity program direct cost [sic] are $7000 or 70%. University of Maryland Eastern Shore Cyber Warrior Diversity Program administrative cost [sic] are $3000 or 30%.&#8221;
&#8220;Once payment is made to University of Maryland Eastern Shore by the State of Maryland trough [sic] MHEC they [sic] have 30-90 days period of grace to pay Digit All City for program direct cost [sic] incurred,&#8221; it continued.
It said Lucas&#8217;s firm would run a computer science course, saying &#8220;The SWDP [sic] courses offer the hard and soft skills needed to work in this industry.&#8221; It is not clear why the school did not simply use its existing computer science program–taught by faculty like Fang–for that.
The<a href="https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2018RS/bills/sb/sb0615E.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> bill</a> creating the program allocated $2.5 million to black colleges to create programs &#8220;to train students in computer networking and cybersecurity,&#8221; and said &#8220;the governing entity at each institution is responsible for administering the program at that institution.&#8221;
Spokesmen for Anderson and Chancellor Perman both declined to comment on the lawsuits against the Eastern Shore college, citing policies on ongoing litigation.
Anderson hired a lawyer to threaten The Daily Wire with a lawsuit after it presented <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/maryland-college-president-heidi-anderson-plagiarized-dissertation" target="_blank" rel="noopener">side-by-side academic papers</a> showing thousands of words of her dissertation were identical to older papers by others. University spokesman Robert Vickers said the lawyer was hired by Anderson personally, not by the school.

Heidi Anderson / University of Maryland Eastern Shore

This Black College Is A ‘Criminal Enterprise,’ Ex-Top Official Says In Lawsuit

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University of Maryland

The Regents of the Texas A&amp;M University System voted unanimously on Thursday to adopt a policy requiring college presidents to sign off on any course that could be interpreted as pushing “race and gender ideology or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.”
The new policy seeks to prevent another controversy like the one that erupted at Texas A&amp;M earlier this year when an English professor was filmed pushing pro-LGBT talking points during a children’s literature course. The policy approved by regents defines race ideology as “attempts to shame a particular race or ethnicity” or anything that “promotes activism on issues related to race or ethnicity rather than academic instruction,” The Texas Tribune <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2025/11/13/texas-am-regents-race-gender-ideology-course-audit/">reported</a>. Gender ideology is defined under the policy as “a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing, and disconnected from, the biological category of sex.”
The policy also prohibits professors from teaching any material that is not consistent with the approved syllabus. Enforcement of the policy is set to begin at all 12 colleges in the Texas A&amp;M University System in the spring 2026 semester.
“What we’re doing is pretty simple,” regent Sam Torn told The Texas Tribune. “It’s not as complex. We’re simply making sure that we do educate, and we’re simply making sure that we teach what the course syllabus specifies that we teach.”
Videos obtained and shared by Republican Texas state Rep. Brian Harrison and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-texas-am-student-booted-from-lecture-after-objecting-to-professor-pushing-radical-gender-theory?author=Zach+Jewell&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=6&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=WATCH%3A+Texas+A%26M+Student+Booted+From+Lecture+After+Objecting+To+Professor+Pushing+Radical+Gender+Theory">first reported</a> by The Daily Wire in September showed children’s literature professor Dr. Melissa McCoul advocating for leftist views on race and gender and asking one student who pushed back on her arguments to leave a lecture. The children’s literature course included material that advocated for introducing leftist gender ideas to children. One of the slides in the class was titled “Let’s talk gender in children’s lit!” and argued that “Childhood is the time for figuring out how to be a boy, girl, man, woman, or another gender.”
In a phone call with the student who publicly opposed the leftism espoused in the literature course, then-Texas A&amp;M President Mark Welsh said, “There’s not a problem” with teaching LGBT literature as long as the university makes it clear it will be part of a class. When the student asked Welsh if any more changes would be made, such as firing McCoul, Welsh accused the student of attempting to “pick a fight,” adding that the university would not punish the professor.
Welsh <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/texas-am-president-to-resign-after-leftist-politics-infiltrated-university-childrens-lit-course">stepped down</a> as Texas A&amp;M president less than two weeks after the videos and details of the children’s literature class were made public. A rule implemented in September requires that all course content at each of the Texas A&amp;M System’s 12 schools be audited.
“It’s a serious system-wide review of every course, every syllabus,” Torn said on Thursday. “We are examining the body of knowledge behind each degree, low-producing programs, workforce relevance and financial stewardship.”
Rep. Harrison <a href="https://x.com/brianeharrison/status/1989310142291100113">celebrated</a> after the regents approved the new policy on race and gender ideology, saying that his use of social media to highlight the issue at Texas A&amp;M “has done more this year to combat woke indoctrination than the entire Texas House and Texas Senate… combined.”
Some professors are concerned that the policy will only add confusion.
Geography professor Andrew Klein told the board of regents, “The vagueness of the language is problematic. Faculty are now assuming that all instructions in the topic of concern will be prohibited. Will subjects like medicine, public health and law, where such content is required to prepare professionals for the Texas workforce, be disallowed?”
Philosophy professor Martin Peterson added that academics must “seek the truth,” arguing, “When we seek the truth, we sometimes have to explore ideas that touch on controversial issues.”
“It is not always clear what counts as advocating for an ideology in those contexts,” Peterson said.
European history professor Miranda Sachs argued that the new rule would prevent her from addressing certain historical topics, such as the Holocaust. Regent John Bellinger responded to Sachs’s comment, saying, “There’s got to be some common sense in this.”
“I think we’re taking it a little bit too far when [we say] that we’re not going to teach about what happened in world wars,” Bellinger said.

Texas A&M

Texas A&M Restricts ‘Race And Gender Ideology’ After Leftist Literature Course Exposed

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