Why DEI and female intelligence agents became the target of right-wing outrage

“Absolute humiliation for this horde of female Secret Service agents,” right-wing content creator Benny Johnson captioned a video on X, writing further down in the post that “DEI Secret Service makes presidents LESS safe.” The post has been viewed nearly 9 million times.

“Secret Service personnel on the scene responded quickly during the incident. Our sniper team neutralized the shooter and our agents took protective measures to ensure the safety of former President Donald Trump,” Cheatle said in a statement released by the Secret Service on Monday.

The online backlash over the gender of the Secret Service agents on duty during the shooting shows how online opponents can quickly spread partisan speculation during national emergencies when little reliable information is available. Following the shooting over the weekend, liberals and conservatives flooded social media with unsubstantiated claims about the shooter and the attack.

Meanwhile, internet platforms have backed away from some of their most aggressive efforts to moderate toxic content, often leaving much of it unchecked. The social media landscape has become more decentralized, as groups of like-minded users reinforce their partisan views in online silos.

The DEI attacks join growing references to diversity in social media posts, podcasts and other public statements by conservative politicians, commentators and influencers who blame corporate efforts to create more inclusive and equitable work environments for everything from disruptions at airlines to fights in schools. Such references increased 50 percent and are 15 times more common since July 2022, according to social media posts, podcasts and other public statements by high-ranking conservative politicians, commentators and influencers analyzed by The Washington Post. The term DEI is emerging as one of the right’s favorite topics to generate attention and outrage on social media, experts say.

“This is all part of a direct effort to undermine and eliminate this (DEI) policy in the federal government if Trump is elected,” said Teddy Wilson, editor of Radical Reports, an institute that studies and researches right-wing extremism.

In another example, far-right influencer Matt Walsh posted a video of female Secret Service agents rallying around Trump after the attack, with the caption: “There should be no women in the Secret Service. They are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best in this job are women.” Pearl Davis, a well-known anti-feminist YouTuber, said in a now-deleted post: “Why do we keep trying to put women in positions they don’t belong in? Go into HR, as an assistant, in sales, or lower management.”

In the wake of these attacks, institutions appear to be moving away from diversity and inclusion. Some have revamped their diversity programs or eliminated the requirement for applicants to address diversity, says Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

“After the murder of George Floyd and all the chaos during the pandemic, a lot of business leaders came forward and said, ‘You know, we’re going to change,'” Chakravorti said. “They made all kinds of promises, and a year later you look at the numbers – literally nothing has changed.”

Over the past year, DEI efforts – once praised by tech industry CEOs – have been increasingly criticized for leading to bloated payrolls at major tech companies, unqualified hires at startups, and lower standards in business and academia – a position often discussed on technology podcasts like “All-In.”

Elon Musk has been campaigning against DEI to his nearly 190 million followers on X since long before the rally, including in a December post that said, “DEI must DIE.” Venture capitalists close to him also pointed to the Secret Service’s DEI efforts on X. Musk could not immediately be reached for comment.

Anil Dash, a veteran tech entrepreneur, said the resistance to DEI by Silicon Valley tech titans was partly a reaction to the rise of tech workers as a powerful working class that called out bad actors, championed diversity initiatives and pushed back against business deals they viewed as unethical, such as working on weapons. Some tech executives resented this show of power — and sought to roll back the consensus that racial and gender diversity was a good thing for the industry, Dash said.

DEI encompasses a broad range of practices that proponents describe as a means of diversifying businesses, schools and organizations and ensuring equal opportunity. These include efforts such as recruitment and mentoring programs for underrepresented groups, anti-bias training and employee resource groups. Critics of DEI programs say preferences based on race and gender are themselves discriminatory.

The social media attacks on DEI follow a conservative legal movement targeting longstanding corporate and government programs that take race, gender and other preferences into account to combat demographic inequalities in business, government and education. That legal campaign received a boost from the Supreme Court’s ruling last June that declared racial preferences in admissions decisions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina unconstitutional.

Chakravorti said right-wing influencers were unlikely to reduce their attacks.

“The attacks on DEI programs and the so-called ‘woke agenda’ were a crucial part of the right-wing program, the Republican program.”

Jeremy Merrill contributed to this report.