Biden Required Diplomats to Study ‘White Fragility,’ ‘Case for Reparations’—What Trump Is Doing About It

Under the administration of President Joe Biden, foreign service officers were asked to read materials on critical race theory, reparations, and so-called white fragility.

The Biden State Department provided a document titled, “Resources for Talking About Racism and Injustices” to instructors of Foreign Service Officers. The materials covered topics including, “When White Women Cry: How White Women Tears Oppress Women of Color.”

“As shown through this scenario, the White woman’s reality is visible, acknowledged, and legitimized because of her tears, while a woman of color’s reality, like her struggle, is invisible, overlooked, and pathologized based on the operating ‘standard of humanity,'” the article said.

Foreign service officers were also asked to read materials including, “Where are you in your understanding of your whiteness?“; “Tools for interrupting microaggressions”; “Anti-Racism for Kids 101“; and “In Defense of Looting.” The last document describes looting by groups like the Black Panthers as “one of the most righteous anti-white supremacist tactics available” throughout American history.

President Donald Trump’s State Department has since changed the reading list to include key documents on America’s founding, the Daily Signal can first report. State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said the Trump administration is doing away with what he called “fringe DEI ideology.”

“The Trump Administration knows that a dedicated, patriotic Foreign Service makes America stronger,” he told the Daily Signal. “That’s why the State Department has reformed the Foreign Service, scrapping fringe DEI ideology and replacing it with a renewed focus on geopolitics, economic statecraft, and diplomatic history to ensure that America’s diplomats are prepared to meet the challenges of the 21^st century.”

Other resources of Biden’s State Department included “How to Be Anti-Racist in [Humanitarian] Aid;” Robin Diangelo’s “White Fragility and the Rules of Engagement;” and “From White Racist to White Anti-Racist.”

“Racism is the norm rather than an aberration,” Diangelo wrote in “White Fragility.” She added, “Feedback is key to our ability to recognize and repair our inevitable and often unaware collusion.”

Diplomats were also asked to listen to the New York Times’ “1619” Podcast by Nikole Hannah-Jones. The 1619 Project was a multi-media effort by Hannah-Jones and others at the New York Times to reframe the American founding by centering it on the oppression of minorities. The original project argued that protecting slavery was a major reason America declared independence, but this claim was widely disputed by historians.

One of the recommended materials, “The Case for Reparations,” written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, argues that reparations are essential for the United Statesto “reckon with our compounding moral debts.” Otherwise, America will “never be whole,” he argued.

Now, the Trump administration requires officers to read a variety of documents and other influential historical texts on the founding of the U.S. The reading list now includes George Washington’s Farewell Address; materials on the Monroe Doctrine; and “The Federalist Papers.”

Foreign service officers are also assigned newer texts on international relations, such as Samuel P. Huntington’s “The Clash of Civilizations?”; Nicholas Eberstadt’s “Demography and International Relations;” Henry Kissinger’s “Diplomacy;” and President Ronald Reagan’s Brandenburg Gate speech.

“The State Department will continue to build a diplomatic service that can deliver for the American people at anytime, anywhere in the world,” Pigott said, “and encourages patriotic Americans to join the Foreign Service.”