Trump Claims He Ended Racial Sensitivity Training in Federal Agencies ‘Because It’s Racist’
President Trump touted his executive order banning “racial sensitivity training” during the first presidential debate with rival Joe Biden.
Trump signed the order earlier this month, intended “to combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating.” The order bans federal agencies and contractors from funding racial sensitivity or “diversity” trainings.
“I ended it because it’s racist,” Trump said. “I ended it because a lot of people were complaining that they were asked to do things that were absolutely insane, that it was a radical revolution that was taking place in our military, in our schools, all over the place.”
Trump continued, “We would pay people hundreds of thousands of dollars to teach very bad ideas, and frankly very sick ideas, and really they were teaching people to hate our country. And I’m not going to do that, I’m not going to allow that to happen.”
Biden countered that such training is necessary in some cases.
“The fact is that there is racial insensitivity; people have to be made aware of what other people feel like. What insults them, what is demeaning to them,” Biden said. “It makes a gigantic difference in the way a child is able to grow up and have a sense of self-esteem.”
Training sessions on race and diversity issues have been held in various taxpayer-funded agencies following the death of George Floyd, an African American man killed during his arrest by Minneapolis police officers. The programs purport to combat systemic racism by highlighting the nefarious affects of white supremacy, which many of the programs teach is embedded in the structure of American society.
