We Must Ban Discrimination But Not Excellence!

John Stossel on Dec 3, 2025

Google settled a racial bias lawsuit for $50 million. Merrill Lynch paid $20 million. Maryland taxpayers will have to pay $3 million to make a racial discrimination suit go away. "This is ridiculous! Taxpayers should not be on the hook for this!" complains Heather Mac Donald, author of "When Race Trumps Merit." She argues that companies and governments feel forced to pay because of a legal doctrine called "disparate impact." "Most people don't even know what it is!" I say.

"It is their greatest weapon against excellence," she replies, "and it is an abuse of the spirit of our civil rights laws." Disparate impact rules say any policy or test in which some races or sexes do better than others is illegal discrimination, even if the policy has nothing to do with race or sex. "The Maryland State Police wanted to make sure state troopers could read at a very basic level," says Mac Donald. But because black applicants got lower scores, the test was ruled racist. Because women got lower scores on the physical fitness test, the state was also found guilty of sexism.

State politicians promised to change their standards and create new tests. Maryland taxpayers still have to pay millions. "Disparate impact means an institution can be completely colorblind, it can want to have as many different races as possible, but if it has a standard that blacks do poorly on, you got to throw out the standard," says Mac Donald. New York taxpayers also paid about $2 billion because lawyers said a test for teachers was racist.

Mac Donald says: "Even though you've spent decades throwing out every question on this exam that has too wide a racial divergence, you still didn't have the same proportion of black applicants passing as white applicants, we're going to throw out the exam. And you, New York taxpayers, are liable for $2 billion!"

I push back, saying the reason Blacks are behind "is because of the legacy of slavery ... That's all they're saying. Remember that." "No," replies Mac Donald, "they're saying much more than that! ... We have way overcorrected. You can have meritocracy in an institution, or you can have diversity. You cannot have both."

Now President Trump has ended disparate impact rules in the federal government. "We're bringing meritocracy, the American way, back!" said his energy secretary. Trump also told colleges to get rid of DEI programs. "Some did kind of dismantle the DEI offices," says Mac Donald, "but a lot of other ones just renamed them. 'Diversity and Equity' becomes 'Belonging and Community.'"

At the University of Virginia, staffers were caught bragging about it. "We have to change the names of some of our programs," says one. "We have 'queer brunch.' You can't call it 'queer brunch' anymore. You (have) to call it 'cozy brunch' ... We're doing the same stuff, but changing the names a little bit."

"It is an act of narcissism and ego on the part of these college administrators who only care about the photos that show up on their college website and making sure that they're suitably diverse," says Mac Donald. "None of your viewers should give any benefit of the doubt to these bureaucrats. There's no knowledge required to be a diversity bureaucrat. The only thing necessary is you're willing to prosecute the race hustle." That's doing real harm, she says.

"You already have medical schools that have simply waived the medical college admissions tests for black students because they do so poorly on them. They are bringing blacks into medical schools with qualifications that would be automatically disqualifying if presented by whites or Asians." These facts are unpleasant for many to hear. But they deserve to be heard. Institutions should have one standard for excellence. "Ban discrimination," says McDonald, "but we do not ban excellence. We do not ban high expectations ... Have a single level of excellence in this society. That is how we're going to move forward."

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Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of "Government Gone Wild: Exposing the Truth Behind the Headlines."