Hours after his 2021 inauguration, President Joe Biden signed his executive order on “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.” Until the ascent of the second Trump administration, federal bureaucrats used this order to force grant applicants to pledge support for diversity, equity, and inclusion practices — even for projects otherwise devoid of ideological trappings.

The Washington Examiner identified nearly $1 billion worth of federal grants earmarked for ostensibly nonpolitical purposes, such as “nuclear reactor safety training” or “landslide hazard mapping,” that evaluated applicants based on their willingness to embed DEI within the federally funded programs. This analysis covered only 10 funding opportunities, meaning the true extent of this dynamic was likely much greater under the Biden administration, affecting a large portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars in grant funding disbursed under the former president.