“The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), a conservative legal group, is requesting the Trump administration remove race from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) ‘Social Vulnerability Index,’ which is being used by liberal localities to steer funds to communities based on race,” reports Fox News:
WILL refers to what has been taking place as “DEI redlining” in its letter to Trump administration officials at the CDC and the Health and Human Services Department (HHS). It says the tool helps localities prioritize Black and Hispanic neighborhoods over White neighborhoods due to racial composition, independent of any other factors, like poverty.
“In the name of ‘racial equity,’ local officials prioritize certain geographic areas for public safety, parks improvements, public swimming pool closures, broadband access, safe drinking water, and disaster assistance,” WILL states in its letter to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CDC’s Jim O’Neill. “And these governments point to CDC’s SVI as the reason for their race-based spending.”
WILL cites the closure of a pool in a 90% white village in Milwaukee County, based on a racial equity index derived from CDC’s SVI:
Milwaukee’s Racial Equity Index has real-world impacts impacting kids and families every year. For example, Hales Corners, a village in Milwaukee County, has a large community pool that has been closed for the past few years…the pool needs about $600,000 in repairs. But those repairs will likely never come. Instead, Milwaukee County plans to close the pool permanently. As you may expect, with a 90% white population, Hales Corners ranks very low on the Racial Equity Index. According to Milwaukee County, Hales Corners ranks 128 out of 153 parks in Milwaukee County, with a 3 out of 10 score and a 0.33 SVI score. So the kids and families in Hales Corners will lose their swimming pool, which has been a community fixture since 1968, because the residents are too white. The report recommending closure of the Hales Corners pool begins as follows: “equity is a central consideration.” The report emphasizes racial “equity” sixteen different times. No one doubts that the pool would be repaired if it was in a majority black neighborhood.
“The CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index” accounts for 70% of the “Parks Equity Index” Milwaukee County is using to close that pool.
Thus, “parks in white neighborhoods are de-prioritized, while parks in non-white neighborhoods are prioritized,” WILL notes:
Milwaukee is just one example. There are many more:
• The State of Connecticut ranks drinking water projects based on the SVI.
• The State of California uses the SVI to determine which communities should receive disaster assistance grants.
• The State of Arizona employs SVI to decide where health-related grants should be awarded.
• Cook County, Illinois, prioritizes broadband grants to “communities with the highest [SVI] in Illinois.”
• The City of Boston prioritizes spending to improve “safety on Boston’s streets” based on each location’s SVI score.
The CDC’s Social Vulnerability Index deems ALL non-whites and Hispanics to be vulnerable, regardless of their income and regardless of whether they have ever experienced discrimination: It includes all non-whites and Hispanics “of any race” in its assessment of “overall vulnerability”, solely because of their “racial & ethnic minority status.”
Treating communities differently based on their racial composition violates court rulings like Walker v. City of Mesquite, 169 F.3d 973 (5th Cir. 1999).
The SVI effectively gives all non-whites a racial preference throughout the country, regardless of whether they have ever experienced discrimination, and regardless of whether a place whose funding is affected by the SVI has ever discriminated or been impacted by discrimination in funding.
The SVI’s racial preference for all non-whites flouts court rulings saying non-whites can’t ALL be given a racial preference when only SOME non-white minority groups were discriminated against in a region. (See L. Feriozzi Concrete Co. v. Casino Reinvestment Dev. Auth. (2001)).
The use of the SVI in funding also violates court rulings saying the federal government can’t have racial preferences in a region if government-facilitated discrimination only occurred in other regions. (See Washington States Paving Co. v. Washington State Department of Transportation, 407 F.3d 983 (9th Cir. 2005)).
The permanent nature of the SVI’s racial classification is also objectionable. Discrimination that occurred 14 or more years ago is not a reason for giving a minority group a preference today, according a federal appeals court. (Brunet v. City of Columbus (1993)).
