Senator Ed Markey just handed Republicans a gift wrapped in DEI language and tied with a bow of progressive virtue signaling. The Massachusetts Democrat posted what he probably thought was a perfectly reasonable internship announcement on Tuesday, encouraging BIPOC, LGBTQ+, working class, veterans and other underrepresented candidates to apply for spring 2027 positions in his Boston office. What he actually did was remind everyone exactly why young white men have been fleeing the Democratic Party like rats from a sinking ship.
The response came swift and brutal. Representative Brandon Gill from Texas asked the obvious question that millions of Americans were already thinking: “Are white men allowed to apply, Senator?” It’s the kind of question that shouldn’t need asking in a country supposedly committed to equal opportunity, but here we are.
Conservative activist Chris Rufo called it an open violation of civil rights law on Twitter. Katie Miller, wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, went further and declared it blatantly illegal. The pile-on continued from there, with conservatives smelling blood in the water and Democrats scrambling to explain how encouraging some people to apply somehow doesn’t discourage others.
Now, technically speaking, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has stated in past guidance that encouraging applicants from certain backgrounds doesn’t necessarily violate federal discrimination law. That’s a lot of qualifiers in one sentence, isn’t it? The agency also warns that job advertisements expressing preferences based on race, sex or other protected characteristics may be unlawful. So which is it? The answer seems to depend on who’s doing the hiring and which administration happens to be in power at the moment.
The actual job posting on Markey’s Senate website doesn’t explicitly bar white people from applying. But that’s not really the point, is it? When you list every demographic group under the sun except one, you’re sending a message whether you mean to or not. It’s like throwing a party and specifically inviting everyone on the block except the family next door, then acting surprised when they feel unwelcome.
What really galls people about this isn’t just the hiring practice itself. It’s the smug certainty that progressives like Markey display while implementing these policies. As one commentator pointed out, you never see these white male senators resigning their own seats because white men have too much power. You never see them donating their houses to reduce the racial wealth gap. No, the burden of their ideological crusade always falls on someone else. Someone younger. Someone trying to get their first break in politics.
This connects to something deeper happening across America right now. Businesses are backpedaling on DEI initiatives faster than you can say “shareholder lawsuit.” The Trump administration is pushing hard against what it views as discriminatory hiring practices dressed up in progressive language. Even some Democrats are quietly admitting that maybe, just maybe, they went too far in trying to engineer equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity.
Kelly Loeffler, the Small Business Administration Administrator, hit back at Markey’s post with justified frustration. Here’s a senator who serves as the Ranking Member of the Senate Small Business Committee, and he’s modeling exactly the kind of hiring approach that small businesses are being told to abandon. Politicians need to stop picking winners and losers based on immutable characteristics. That used to be a liberal principle, by the way. Somewhere along the line, the left forgot that treating people differently based on race or sex is wrong regardless of which direction the discrimination flows.
The tragedy here is that Markey probably thinks he’s being helpful. He likely believes he’s opening doors for people who’ve been historically excluded. But what he’s actually doing is perpetuating a system where people are valued first for their demographic categories and second for their skills, drive and character. That’s not progress. That’s regression with a modern vocabulary.
You know what would be truly revolutionary? A job posting that says “motivated and eager interns wanted” and then actually judges applicants on merit. Radical concept, I know. But sometimes the old ways work better than the new ones precisely because they were built on principles that don’t shift with political winds.
Related: DOJ Catches California Red-Handed With Noncitizens on Ballot Lists