Money will go to ‘marginalized’ and ‘underrepresented groups’ in Indonesia, Guatemala, and Kenya, documents show
The Biden-Harris administration quietly pushed out $1 million in taxpayer funding late last year for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs abroad, marking a last-ditch effort to cement its left-wing agenda before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, non-public funding documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
The U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Office of Chief Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility, in tandem with the State Department, notified Congress just before Christmas that it earmarked the money for several programs that will support “marginalized” and “underrepresented groups” in Indonesia, Guatemala, and Kenya. Part of the spending will see USAID “engage with Indigenous-led institutions to implement an Indigenous language technology program” in Guatemala, where nearly 95 percent of residents speak Spanish.
The funding initiatives reflect a broader effort from outgoing secretary of state Antony Blinken to embed a host of DEI initiatives at home and abroad ahead of Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration.
Just before the State Department finalized the $1 million funding package, for example, Blinken issued an internal diplomatic cable touting sweeping DEI initiatives across the agency, including dedicated “reflection rooms” and “all-gender restrooms” at American embassies abroad, the Free Beacon reported in December. The incoming GOP administration has already pledged to eradicate DEI programming across the federal government.
In the case of the Guatemalan “Indigenous language technology program,” USAID is partnering with “local universities to develop a short translation and interpretation training focused to Indigenous professionals.” The taxpayer cash, the State Department maintains, will help the country “ensure services are provided using local Indigenous languages.”
USAID will also use a portion of the cash “to support skills development for youth from marginalized communities” in Kenya and Indonesia.
In Kenya, the United States “will build a collaborative bridge between U.S. higher education institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities; select Kenyan universities; and the private sector.” Universities selected to participate in the programming will receive funding for various “capacity enriching activities,” such as cultural exchanges and research projects meant to “prepare a generation of innovative Kenyan leaders to meet evolving market demands,” according to the notice.
In Indonesia, the grants will help “underrepresented” students “gain access to higher education opportunities in the United States.” While the Indonesian government has funded a similar educational endowment fund to the tune of $9 billion, the State Department says the related programs have faced criticism for “being uneven, particularly favoring students from more developed regions like Java,” an Indonesian island. The new funding, then, is meant to “address these disparities, targeting outreach programs to increase the representation of students from outside the Java region.”
The DEI spending spree is drawing criticism in Congress, with one GOP source who works on State Department issues saying the Biden administration is “using American taxpayer money to promote progressive wishlist items, and this grant is just another example.”
The issue is also causing friction between the State Department and Rep. Brian Mast (R., Fla.), the newly elected chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which oversees Foggy Bottom.
Mast, in a letter sent Wednesday to the State Department and obtained by the Free Beacon, said his office was recently “made aware of hundreds of millions of dollars of proposed obligations for initiatives that offer no clear national security benefit to the U.S. or its allies.”
Millions of dollars, Mast said, will help “combat climate change in the war-torn Middle East or fund LGBTQI awareness in Zimbabwe.” Mast informed the State Department he is placing a hold on the funds until his committee reviews them more closely.
“The rush to fund these and other controversial programs on the eve of a new administration contradicts President Biden’s pledge to conduct a smooth transition and undermines critical Congressional oversight of taxpayer dollars spent abroad,” Mast wrote.
The State Department did not return a request for comment.
Read the full article here
