Calling Kamala Harris a ‘DEI hire’ is what bigotry looks like

“America may soon be subjected to the country’s first DEI president: Kamala Harris,” screamed the headline of an op-ed in The New York Post on Saturday penned by Fox Business senior correspondent Charles Gasparino.

The longtime media figure began his article by slamming Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs as “literally destroying businesses.” Gasparino then took aim at the vice president, writing that “the American public may soon be subjected to DEI writ large in the next president of the United States, if Kamala Harris finds her way to the top of the Democratic ticket.”

Gasparino’s suggestion that Harris only got to where she is because of diversity programs — not because she earned it — is despicable. It reeks of the white supremacist myth that people of color are inherently inferior to white people and, therefore, we achieve success and positions of influence not on the merits, but only with the help of a diversity program. (I once was called a “quota hire” years ago on social media by a Fox News frequent guest because at the time I was the first Muslim hired to host a national radio show.)