At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on combating antisemitism, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) slammed President Trump's attacks on DEI.
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NewsTranscript
00:00away from their five minutes if you really want to get all these facts out.
00:04Ms. Arano. Mr. Chairman, thank you all for testifying.
00:09And I recognize how important this issue is because of course there was a time
00:14when we had a lot of focus on the attacks on the Asian American
00:19Pacific Islander Native Hawaiian community, especially during
00:22COVID. So the safety of especially our minority community members is always
00:29an issue in this country and we have not, in my view, done a particularly good job
00:35of making sure that people are safe. I do have a question for Mr.
00:40Racklin. Now, I mean, we have an administration that is totally
00:44obsessed with DEI to the point where they want,
00:49that they've put out the word that any reference to
00:52diversity, equity, and inclusion should be wiped out of
00:56all of the websites of our administration,
01:00including to agencies that get federal money. So I will give you an example of
01:06how ridiculous all of this is in my view.
01:10I met with a group of people from the Department of Agriculture in Hawaii
01:15and that they had to remove reference to diverse
01:18crops. And now you know that equity is also involved in things like equity in
01:24your house. So this, what I would call the obsession
01:29with DEI is, has been very weaponized. Mr. Racklin,
01:34Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which is a long-standing law,
01:40prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion,
01:43sex, or national origin. We already have a law,
01:48we already have a law that prohibits discriminatory hiring,
01:52for example, and also in employment, etc. We already have that.
01:56So what I don't get is why there's all this anti-DEI
02:00fervor that I think adds to the kind of discrimination and divisiveness in our
02:07country. Do you have any thoughts about the,
02:12you know, what's happening with DEI and how
02:16it's not helping in addressing discrimination in our country?
02:21First, thank you and thank you for pronouncing my name correctly.
02:25But I would say this regarding to DEI and what exactly you said about
02:29Title VII is, we have laws on the books. The ability to attack
02:34DEI initiatives and the continuous obsession with them
02:37does nothing but create division within our society.
02:41If the administration was truly interested in actually addressing this,
02:45they would look for ways to actually bring different populations together and
02:48different communities together, rather than labeling things as diversity,
02:51equity, inclusion, and trying to divide them apart.
02:53It's a very strange obsession that I've noticed over the last several months,
02:57actually. I think that it's definitely become
03:02weaponized, as far as I'm concerned, and that DEI is blamed for just for
03:08everything by people who obviously have not faced the kind of
03:12discrimination that truly should be
03:18illegal. It already is, frankly. I have to share with you
03:22another instance of during the horrific incident with the plane crashing
03:27into the Potomac, and the president says, oh, it's only
03:31common sense that we should
03:35blame DEI. I found that astounding because he drew the conclusion that
03:41somehow people of color, women and people of
03:44color, has something to do with this crash.
03:47I can tell you I was so appalled by his comment that I said there is
03:53absolutely nothing common sense about it, that his
03:56reference that DEI should be blamed in that instance, and
03:59just about every other instance that he can think of. I said this is just
04:04sexist, racist, and I basically use the term BS, but I
04:09won't say that here, but you get my meaning.
04:13Okay, for Ms. Solomon. During our last hate crimes hearing, we
04:19discussed the value of civic education and heard a call for universities to
04:25develop courses focused on engaging in
04:28difficult conversations, and universities are supposed to
04:32be the heart of civil discourse, and I have long supported
04:37civics education in our schools. We certainly could do more. Ms. Solomon,
04:43do you think schools and universities are doing enough
04:47education on civil discourse? Thank you so much, Senator Hirono, for
04:52the question. I do think some universities, like my own
04:55university, Tufts University, is doing a remarkable job of educating
05:00its students about their civic duties in this country and beyond, but I do
05:04think there's always ways that we can do more. This past year, Tufts University
05:08established an educational initiative for its freshman
05:11orientation in which they included anti-Semitism education as well as
05:15education around Islamophobia. I think that this is a model for other
05:18colleges and universities to adapt to their own campuses in order
05:22to stem the tide of hate crimes across this
05:25country. One would think that the university setting is
05:28especially appropriate as a place where different ideas
05:32can be contemplated and debated, and as a person who,
05:37basically, I matriculated during the Vietnam War. I was at the University of
05:42Hawaii where I protested, and it is one of the
05:46activities that awaken my sense of civic responsibility.
05:50Thank you very much. Senator Schmidt.