Feds Kill ‘Diversity’ Project … for Trees

The USDA revoked a federal tree-planting grant in Indianapolis earlier this year because it ran afoul of the government’s anti-DEI initiatives. The problem was that the project pushed for diversity, which is to say biodiversity … of trees.

Jeremy Kranowitz, president and CEO of Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, thinks the $400,000 grant for urban forestry projects was rescinded because it had used the words “biodiversity” and “equity” in its description. The project had hoped to promote a more biodiverse tree canopy and to make tree plantings more equitable throughout the city.

“We are getting caught up in what seems like a big purge of all things DEI and really all we want to do is make the city a better place for everybody,” Kranowitz told the Indy Star.

The government hasn’t confirmed or denied that it cuts funding because of certain words, regardless of context, but it seems to be happening around the country. 

The University of Texas at El Paso lost a $1 million grant this year to investigate the biodiversity of Central and South America birds. The grant summary mentions “diversity” many times, but only in biological terms involving birds. Nevertheless, the axed project was among a group that Texas senator Ted Cruz called “questionable projects that promoted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) tenets or pushed onto science neo-Marxist perspectives about enduring class struggle.”

Meanwhile Duke University has lost hundreds of millions in federal research dollars this year, including 15 National Institutes of Health grants that had used terms like “expression,” “disability,” “trans,” and “systemic” – none of which were describing DEI initiatives or “woke” concepts.

Researchers are learning to avoid such trigger words when they apply for grants or when describing their work. And the National Science Foundation this year combed through thousands of its documents to find and purge restricted language – “disabilities,” “women,” and “minority” among the 108 keywords. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was also directed to remove around 20 terms from its website and publications, including “gender,” “pregnant person,” and “transgender.”

There are valid reasons to excise “woke” language from government publications, but the purge goes too far when legitimate science gets tossed out with this new, twisted version of political correctness.

Photo credit: One Tree Planted via YouTube