Project 2025 and the reversal of decades of social progress

During her confirmation hearing in October 2020, future Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett was grilled about the term “super precedent”in reference to any possibility that Roe v. Wade might be overturned. She noted that some cases are “so well settled that no political actors and no people push for their overruling.”
Barrett went on to refer to advice given to her by the late Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia–whom she clerked for in the late 1990s–regarding the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education, also a so-called “super precedent,”which Scalia said would never be overturned because it is so tightly woven into the American socio-political fabric.
Ultra-conservative forces
turn against Black history
We know what happened with Roe v. Wade. Now a new front has been stationed against well-established societal gains made by African-Americans over the past 70 years. The pushback may have begun with the decades-long reluctance of conservative Republicans to reauthorize the 1965 Voting Rights Act–in particular the refusal by House and Senate Republicans to help pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2023. Then ultra-conservative forces turned against Black history studies in the nation’s secondary schools. These right-wing entities subsequently found refuge in the Supreme Court which ruled against officials utilizing affirmative action measures in decisions regarding college admission and employment opportunities. Next was the vehement rejection of the principles of DEI initiatives (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) among the nation’s corporations.
In the zeal to eliminate what some call “anti-White”racism, there is presently a fast-moving effort to identify and prosecute any and all individuals or groups that implement policies that recognize and reward the aforementioned hard-earned victories African-Americans have gained. These actions have caused the African-American community to reel from a series of ultra-right wing legal decisions regarding the posterity or “general welfare”of a community which is a little more than two generations removed from legal segregation.
Project 2025 calls for the elimination of “racist”equity programs, including offices and staff, that are designed to close racial gaps in housing, employment, healthcare and business startups (i.e. fair lending practices). The framework accuses the Biden-Harris administration of enshrining “affirmative action”throughout the federal government, or, in other words, to promote and endorse the willful discrimination of White people in both the public and private sectors.
‘I know nothing about Project 2025’
­­—Donald Trump
At the recent BET Awards, actress Taraji P. Henson urged attendees and viewers to review the tenants of Project 2025, a $22 million initiative by the conservative think-tank Heritage Foundation. It’s largely a blueprint for the first 180 days of a potential second term for Donald Trump. While the Trump campaign has disavowed any association–or any general knowledge–of Project 2025, numerous former Trump administration officials have contributed to the platform. Trump’s name appears more than 300 times within the 920-page document. “I know nothing about Project 2025,”Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this month. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some or the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
Project 2025’s scope and implications are the antithesis of African-American progress made over the past seven decades. One tenant within the project is to enable the Department of Justice to intervene in local matters, thus posing a significant risk to Black communities because the federal government would essentially be able to implement its own series of policies as they relate to issues ranging from the crime rate, to fair housing statutes or even fair employment policies because they may run against new standards set forth by document. In particular, Project 2025 has a provision to allow for military deployment in domestic law enforcement activities. Many fear that this could result in a forceful crackdown on peaceful protests–often led by Black activists–or other demonstrations such as those that took place following the 2020 murder of George Floyd or those that took place this year on many of the nation’s college colleges in the wake of the Oct.7, 2023 terrorist attack in Israel.
A radical reshaping of
the federal government
Moreover, millions of Black LGBTQ+ citizens could witness a significant rollback of many federal regulations that prohibit discrimination. As well, because many states have implemented staunch prohibitions against abortion, opponents of Project 2025 have said Black women would be the first to be subject to arrest, prosecution and jail for having undergone this medical procedure.
“[Project 2025] represents a structural shift in governmental policy for the 21st century,”said Dr. David L. Horne, a professor of Africana Studies at Cal State Northridge and executive director of the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute. “It represents a radical reshaping of the federal government and would severely restrict the U.S. government’s footprint in social reform and support a radical shift to supporting economic projects not concerned with, for instance, saving the environment, easing poverty or any interference with the aims and procedures of big business and finance.”
If enacted, Project 2025 would essentially place a bullseye on Black educational opportunities, employment and economic opportunity initiatives, as well as censoring academic discussions about race, gender and systemic oppression. It would take federal money away from public schools that host such curricula. School administrator positions that oversee DEI initiatives would be eliminated. Project 2025 was greatly emboldened by the 2023 repeal of affirmative action in college admissions. Also, it would significantly hamper any effort to advance and legally defend affirmative action and DEI policies within military academies, federal minority contracting programs and other federal programs shown to open opportunities–as well as create inclusive education and workplace environments–that have been unfairly denied to people of color, women and other disenfranchised groups.
Making it more difficult to
enforce civil rights regulations
On the regulatory side, Project 2025 would make it practically impossible to enforce civil rights regulations on behalf of individuals from historically marginalized groups and severely weaken protections in housing, education, healthcare and other essential resources. Public health has always been linked to structural racism because of historic disparities in accessibility and care. Project 2025 would greatly impede ongoing efforts to remedy and provide balance to these and other issues that have long plagued the African-American community.
“Supporters of Project 2025 have leveraged last year’s Supreme Court decision on affirmative action to undermine and create confusion about DEI initiatives–even though DEI and affirmative action are two different issues,”said ReNika Moore, director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Racial Justice Program. “We remain determined to educate the public on this racist agenda, and continue to defend vital efforts that counteract historical discrimination and unequal access to opportunities.”The ACLU notes that any infringement on inclusive education practices and policies is as much a First Amendment issue as it is a civil rights issue.
In states like Florida, Iowa and Texas, new laws are being implemented to shift more power to the executive branch, thereby erasing historic checks and balances and overriding local control. Mary McCord, a former U.S. assistant attorney general for national security, said the recent Supreme Court decision granting presidents presumptive immunity for official acts (and absolute immunity when exercising core constitutional powers) has helped to fuel a number of objectives of Project 2025. She said it opens the door for presidents to basically influence and direct investigations by the DOJ without fear or reprisal.
The repeal of Obamacare
“That means launching sham investigations into political opponents, directing the FBI to engage in various types of surveillance, etc.,”she said.
Perhaps the most egregious example of eliminating programs that have greatly benefited African-Americans and communities of color in general is the repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of which Project 2025 supports dismantling large swaths of it. Trump has long voiced his desire to replace “Obamacare.”YouGov conducted a survey this month of which 56 percent of responders said they were opposed to ending the ACA.
The Biden campaign has responded to the controversial framework of Project 2025 in stating: “Project 2025 spells it out: If Donald Trump wins a second term, he’ll do everything he can to rip away American freedoms, undermine our democracy, and amass power for himself while weaponizing the government to get revenge on his opponents. The American people are tuning in to just how extreme and unpopular Donald Trump’s second term playbook is.”
Valerie Wilson, a labor economist and director of the Economic Policy Institute Program on Race, Ethnicity and the Economy, said Project 2025 threatens to undo decades of hard-fought battles to pass laws protecting civil and economic gains for all Americans.
“It is a plan to severely restrict and eliminate any avenues for recourse against the violation of those rights, with Black and Brown people, the working class, women and the LGBTQ+ community who face the greatest risk of suffering the consequences.,”she said.
Throughout Project 2025, the authors have substituted the word patriotism for racism. It is an effort to centralize power within a certain group of people (i.e. White men) and take the nation back–unapologetically–to a time when African-Americans could rise no further than what is allowed by the ruling class.
The idea of a “super-precedent”ingrained in American law may not be as impenetrable as once believed. No words within a Supreme Court decision are entirely entrenched in stone. Will a repeal of Brown v. Board of Education be next on the ultra-conservative wish list?