Affirmative Action, DEI dead? Ask Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel and RFK Jr.

This combination photo shows Tulsi Gabbard (left), ictured Jan. 30, 2025, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., pictured Jan. 29, 2025, at their confirmation hearings on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo)
I feel for Nan Zhong, a Chinese American who is suing the University of California because they rejected his son, Stanley, a child prodigy hired by Google at age 18.
They think we live in a land of meritocracy where affirmative action is dead.
Well, it depends on who’s boss.
Zhong has accused the UC system and the US Department of Education of discrimination against Asian American applicants, the third of its kind in recent weeks, according to AsAm News.
Earlier this month, the Students Against Racial Discrimination sued the UC system over its holistic approach to admissions. Another group, The Equal Protection Project sued four Pennsylvania state universities for discrimination against Asians.
If you thought the Harvard case which used Asians Americans to end Affirmative Action last year settled things, you’re wrong.
Some Asian Americans apparently will keep suing until their kid gets in.
No lawyer would take Zhong’s case, so he used AI to file his suit. It’s worth it to Zhong to press on because, as he puts it, he’s “really p—sed off.”
But Zhong’s anger helps expose how legal discrimination exists and how it’s allowed to happen. And there’s nothing to do about it.
Not when it’s dictated from the top.
Trump’s personal DEI landscape
For example, I don’t know any Asian Americans or Native Hawaiians cheering Tulsi Gabbard’s rise to Director of National Intelligence.
Maybe Kash Patel – the guy who wants to run the FBI.
Gabbard, Patel and let’s include RFK Jr. – the wormhead, former dope addict and anti-vax mercenary, who has now been sworn in as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services – are all allied.
They are three peas in a pod, three objectively unqualified people, who have risen to the top, not because of merit, but because of allegiance to one man, Donald Trump.
The records of Gabbard, Patel and RFK Jr. have all been exposed and are not stellar.
Gabbard has never worked for an intelligence agency, and is considered by some conservative legislators a dupe for how she has dealt with Russia and Syrian leaders. Would you share secrets with the US with Gabbard at the helm of intelligence?
Patel has ties to key Jan. 6 figures. He’s been an original election denier that Trump lost in 2020. But if you think those are partisan issues, then what about just the idea of managing an agency like the FBI. He doesn’t have a resume to match any of the previous FBI directors.
And then there’s RFK Jr Let’s just say the worm in his brain qualifies him for a disability, mental and physical. If you put aside the controversial issues like vaccinating his kids, but publicly being anti-vax in situations where people have died, then just go with his management experience.
Has he ever led anything that qualifies him to run an organization with 13 supporting agencies, 80,000 employees and a budget around $1.7 trillion in mandatory funding, and $130.7 billion in discretionary funding.
No.
Is he the guy you choose on merit?
The answer to RFK Jr. again is a resounding No.
As it should be for Gabbard and Patel.
The fact is, they wouldn’t be hires in a traditional DEI world either, because there are way more qualified people of color to fill the positions.
But in this era, they are hires in Trump’s made-to-order “DEI.” Trump’s pets.
They get in when congressional decision-makers fold fearing the loss of their jobs to candidates funded by the richest man in the world, Elon Musk.
And this is the model of meritocracy at the federal level that trickles down to higher ed and everywhere else in American society?
It essentially says what the boss wants goes. It’s more than “who you know.” You have to get the top person’s approval, and give him/her your undivided loyalty. And then you’re owned.
It’s antithetical to diversity, equity and inclusion, AND merit.
It works well for Trump, but nobody else.
Look at Pete Hegseth, the former Fox weekend anchor, now Secretary of Defense, who is negotiating away Ukraine’s rights as he seeks Trump-Putin’s vision of an end to war. Trump has a younger more telegenic man standing in for him. And Ukraine, and the world is a lot worse off.
For Hegseth, sure beats weekend mornings at Fox.
And that’s where we are in these Trump times.
It’s sobering. But so is the fact the Harvard case that went all the way to the Supreme Court really didn’t settle the idea of meritocracy in higher ed or in society.
The Asian “winners” weren’t winners after all.
They were used of course, by the anti-affirmative action folks. Duped.
And now they realize they were betrayed.
I join them in bristling at the headlines about Gabbard and RFK Jr. Meritocracy in America? Trump makes it a laugher.
And getting justice by way of a lawsuit, unlikely. Still, I wish Zhong good luck in his fight against UC. At least his son, Stanley, without a degree, has that great job at Google.
Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist, commentator and humorist. He writes for the Inquirer.net’s US Channel. He has written a weekly “Amok” column on Asian American issues since 1995. Find him on YouTube, patreon and substack.