> On the one hand, the plain text of the language is not against DEI practices in general -- only DEI practices that are "in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws."
EO 14151—the policy of which the rewriting of the standard anti-discrimination clause in this way is a part of the implementation—characterizes DEI entirely as illegal discrimination (but the new backformation “discriminatory equity ideology” is not found in the EO, that’s apparently a newer invention to avoid the dissonance of using the actual expansion of the initialism while characterizing it as directly the opposite of what it is.
The executive order is direction to executive branch officials, including the ones who are responsible for applying the cancellation and clawback terms in the agreement at issue, as to how they are to perform their duties.
It is certainly relevsant to evaluating whether or not it is worthwhile to apply for the grant. That sufficient litigation might reverse an application of the policy in the EO that the agreement text clearly highlights the intent to enforce as inconsistent with the underlying law isn’t worth much unless the cost of expected litigation would be dwarfed by the size of the contract award, and for a $1.5 million grant application, that’s...not very much litigation.
Does it define what DEI is? It seems very loosely defined to me so it seems a bit crazy to talk about it in contact terms without defining it more precisely.
The point is to muddy the waters, to sow uncertainty. To have the ability to apply the law arbitrarily, as opposed to uniformly. The absence of a specific definition very much aids that use case.
EO 14151—the policy of which the rewriting of the standard anti-discrimination clause in this way is a part of the implementation—characterizes DEI entirely as illegal discrimination (but the new backformation “discriminatory equity ideology” is not found in the EO, that’s apparently a newer invention to avoid the dissonance of using the actual expansion of the initialism while characterizing it as directly the opposite of what it is.