The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) spends tens of millions of dollars annually on diversity-related expenses, according to a new report from the watchdog group Open The Books.
American taxpayers foot a bill of roughly $38.7 million every year to employ 297 staffers conducting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) work at HHS, with 247 of those federal employees making over $100,000 a year, according to government records analyzed by Open The Books. On top of that, HHS spends $29.4 million per year to keep 209 workers on payroll for its Office of Minority Health, which exists to “improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will help eliminate health disparities.”
One of the programs funded by the Office of Minority Health included a “vaccine equity” program in Atlanta aimed at getting monkeypox vaccine doses to gay black men to help “celebrate diversity and the impact of distinctly Black gay and queer culture on the community,” according to Open The Books.
“The private sector is learning the hard — and costly — way that much of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion model is discriminatory and subject to expensive litigation,” the report reads, referencing reporting that many corporations are shuttering their DEI operations. “While federal agencies have also faced a mountain of legal challenges, the Biden administration has nevertheless pressed on with the President’s commitment to a ‘whole of government’ DEI effort.”
Under the Biden-Harris administration, the federal government placed an increased emphasis on embedding DEI in the bureaucracy. President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14035 in June 2021 which ordered agencies to make “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” a “priority” in their staffing decisions. In response to the order, HHS promised to hire 313 employees across eight different DEI departments in 2023, according to the agency’s 2022 strategic plan.
Beyond staffing, HHS has earmarked hundreds of millions more in spending for DEI initiatives across the agency, according to Open The Books. The agency, for instance, set aside $608 million for “General Departmental Management,” with the top three goals for the program being “racial equity, environmental justice, climate change.” Other expensive line items include $241 million for universities to hire minority scientists, $24.3 million to make nursing more diverse and $5 million to fund an “Office of Climate Change and Health Equity” and an “Office of Environmental Justice.”
HHS did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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