There's a pattern on the left that's so predictable and pathetic, yet they can’t give it up. No matter how radical the policy, no matter how far outside the mainstream, Democrats will find a way to claim the Constitution is on their side — even though it never is. Still, they don't argue for changing the law; they insist the law already agrees with them.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries gave us a real doozy on Thursday when he spoke at the National Action Network's annual convention in New York. Standing before Al Sharpton's crowd of left-wing activists, Jeffries declared that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is baked right into the U.S. Constitution.
No, really. He said that. And he accused the Trump administration of waging an "all-out assault on civil rights" through its opposition to DEI programs.
Please.
As you know, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20, 2025, ending DEI efforts across the federal government. Secretary Pete Hegseth followed up by eliminating racial and gender promotion quotas in the military last September. To most Americans, this is common sense; to Jeffries, it’s extremism.
And boy, did he tell some whoppers.
Jeffries argued that the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause mandates equity as Democrats define it. He invoked the national motto, "E pluribus unum," as proof of diversity. He quoted the Pledge of Allegiance as evidence of inclusion. Each argument sounded superficially clever, but was substantively wrong.
Start with the motto. "Out of many, one" refers to the union of states and colonies forming a single nation, not a directive to sort people by identity characteristics.
That's basic civics right there. How can the House Minority Leader not know this?
Then there's the 14th Amendment. Equal protection under the law means the government must treat individuals equally, regardless of race or background. That's equal opportunity. Equity, as the left actually uses the term, means engineering equal outcomes — which often requires treating people unequally based on race or sex. Those two things are not the same. They are, in fact, opposites. Jeffries either knows this and hopes you don't, or he genuinely can't tell the difference. I’m not sure which option makes him look better.
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The Pledge of Allegiance argument is perhaps the weakest of the three. "Liberty and justice for all" is a statement about individual rights, not a mandate for identity-based hiring quotas or preferential treatment in federal contracting.
This is what Democrats do. They don't argue that DEI is good on its merits. They can't, because the alleged merits are impossible to defend. Instead, they wrap their agenda in the language of foundational American documents, betting that most Americans won’t know the difference.
We’ve heard similar arguments for other left-wing policies, too. From abortion to same-sex marriage, even open borders. All of those were allegedly enshrined in the Constitution, according to the Democrats. Similarly, healthcare, housing, education, and income are all "rights" under the Constitution, Democrats insist.
