There’s something uniquely mortifying about watching your country export its worst ideas. DEI policies are embarrassing enough when they’re confined to corporate boardrooms and university campuses here at home. But taking these ideologically warped concepts and forcing them onto cultures around the world through our diplomatic corps? That’s not just ridiculous. That’s a national embarrassment.
Thankfully, Marco Rubio and the State Department have had enough. They announced Thursday that they’re putting an end to what they’re calling the “ideologically extreme and discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda” that infected the Foreign Service under Joe Biden. They’re restoring something we used to take for granted: merit, rigor, and accountability. Novel concept, right?
Here’s what should make your blood boil. Under Biden, the DEI agenda wasn’t just some optional training module you could skip. It was embedded in the institutional culture of the Foreign Service. These weren’t polite suggestions. This was the framework through which America’s diplomats were being taught to view the world.
The reading list for foreign instructors tells you everything you need to know. Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility made the cut. So did articles titled “In Defense of Looting” and “How White Women Tears Oppress People of Color.” There was material on reparations and how to be anti-racist in humanitarian aid. This wasn’t education. This was indoctrination, plain and simple.
You know what’s wild? We were teaching our diplomats to be ashamed of America while representing America abroad. The State Department itself admits these materials “shamefully denigrated the United States” and “derided Americans of certain backgrounds.” Let that sink in for a moment. We were paying people to learn why our country is terrible before sending them overseas to advocate for our interests.
The pronoun madness reached our diplomatic training too. Foreign Service instructors got an “inclusivity guide” that promoted International Pronoun Day. Yes, that’s apparently a real thing. The materials incorporated “non-binary pronouns” like “Ze,” “Zir,” and “Zirs” into workplace communications. There was even guidance on how to cope with being accused of microaggression. Because that’s exactly what our diplomats need when they’re navigating complex geopolitical situations.
But it gets worse. The State Department created language toolkits that taught “white privilege” and “systematic racism” in foreign languages. Trainings included discussions about Black Lives Matter in Bangla, systemic racism in Urdu, and exercises integrating BLM terminology into Hebrew lessons. They even had roleplaying exercises on race and racism for diplomats to practice with foreign counterparts.
This reminds me of the whole “Latinx” disaster. As someone who works with people from Latin America regularly, I can tell you most of them either don’t know what that word means or actively hate it. They see it as an assault on their language. El Salvador and Peru have banned this gender-neutral nonsense in schools. Argentina’s working to remove it from public discourse. Even a state in Mexico has moved to prioritize standard Spanish in education. When the people you’re supposedly helping reject your ideology, maybe that’s a sign you’re doing something wrong.
The Biden State Department even built DEI metrics into performance evaluations for Foreign Service Officers. Diplomats were urged to discuss DEI issues with high-level foreign government counterparts, demonstrate “allyship,” and acquire more DEIA knowledge on their own time. Your job performance wasn’t just about advancing American interests anymore. It was about how well you could spread this ideology.
I’d be horrified to tell people I got a job based on anything but merit. Most Americans feel the same way. We want our diplomats chosen because they’re the best at diplomacy, not because they checked the right demographic boxes or memorized the right progressive talking points.
The damage this caused goes beyond hurt feelings or wasted training hours. When you tell diplomats that America is fundamentally flawed, that our history is primarily a story of oppression, and that our systems are irredeemably racist, you undermine their ability to represent us effectively. Why would anyone negotiate forcefully on behalf of a country they’ve been taught to view with contempt?
Rubio’s cleanup effort matters because it signals a return to common sense. The State Department will now focus training on practical diplomatic skills that serve the common interests of the American people. What a concept. Diplomats learning diplomacy instead of critical race theory.
This whole episode reveals something crucial about the previous administration’s worldview. They genuinely believed that American diplomatic training should prioritize social justice ideology over national interest. They thought our biggest contribution to the world was exporting their particular brand of progressive politics. They were wrong, and the American people knew it.
We’re supposed to be training diplomats who can navigate complex international relationships, understand foreign cultures on their own terms, and advance American interests in an increasingly dangerous world. Instead, we were creating ideological missionaries spreading a gospel that most Americans reject and most foreign cultures find baffling or offensive.
The adults are back in charge now. It’s about time.
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