Last Updated on July 12, 2022
A conservative nonprofit estimated that California has spent $500 million on DEI initiatives in recent years. A little over $50,000 went towards “racial equity training” for the state’s Fish and Wildlife Department.
The Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE), a consumer protection nonprofit, called DEI initiatives a “billion-dollar industry” in California. Such initiatives have become increasingly common in universities, corporations and state governments since the George Floyd riots in 2020.
Entities pay “equity consultants” well over six-figures in many instances in order to teach students, staff and government employees about leftist concepts such as white privilege, systemic racism and gender ideology.
Ibram X. Kendi — who was raised by wealthy musicians in New York — has become perhaps the most prominent example. Kendi’s books, including How to Be an Anti-Racist, are found in public schools around the nation while Kendi himself has raked in millions-of-dollars in speaking fees.
CORE recently revealed that California is outpacing other states in the amount it has put aside for DEI initiatives.
“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is becoming California’s newest billion-dollar industry—on the taxpayer’s dime,” CORE lead researcher Will Coggin told Fox News Digital on Monday. “It’s everywhere from kindergarten classrooms to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.”
“Instead of effectively addressing issues like housing, crime or homelessness, California officials have chosen to line the pockets of well-connected diversity consultants,” he continued.
Fox News Digital obtained the report, which wrote that California “public institutions seized the opportunity to expand their budgets and implement ultraprogressive policies often without public awareness.”
“This analysis summarizes the results of nearly 400 California Public Records Act requests sent to state and local governments, as well as higher education institutions and K-12 school districts,” the report reads. “The results are unmistakable: spending related to DEI and critical race theory-framed activities is a vast and growing component of taxpayer-funded spending at all levels of California government.”
The non-profit received a response for about half of their public records requests under the sunshine law, reporting that California spends “nearly half a billion dollars on DEI projects alone” from the data received “with a majority of responses encapsulating FY2020 through FY2022.”
“This report provides cautious estimates of DEI-relevant spending and accounts for the proportion of outstanding requests for records,” the report reads. “This data indicates that so-called ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ is easily worth $1 billion in Golden State spending.”
In addition to spending exuberant amounts on DEI programs, California is set to issue the nation’s first direct reparations payments later this year. Governor Gavin Newsom formed a panel that was tasked with formulating a plan on reparation distribution about two years ago. The panel returned with a plan earlier this year, ultimately deciding to provide direct payments to black citizens who can prove they are descendants of slaves.
The measure narrowly defeated a counter proposal from the other half of the panel, which wanted to provide payments to the state’s entire black population regardless of slave lineage.
