White men were “treated very badly”: Trump says civil rights led to “reverse discrimination”

President Donald Trump said civil rights-era protections have “hurt” white Americans in a recent interview with the New York Times, highlighting the mentality behind his administration’s anti-DEI policies.

“A lot of people were very badly treated,” Trump said when asked whether policies stemming from the Civil Rights Act had led to discrimination against white men.

“White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university to college,” Trump said, referencing affirmative action in college admissions, which called “unfair in certain cases.”

While Trump said that the act “accomplished some very wonderful things,” he also claimed its effect resulted in “reverse discrimination.”

“It also hurt a lot of people — people that deserve to go to a college or deserve to get a job were unable to get a job. So it was, it was a reverse discrimination,” Trump said.

Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, pushed back against Trump’s claims of reverse discrimination.

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Johnson said there is “no evidence that white men were discriminated against as a result of the civil rights movement, the Civil Rights Act, and efforts to rectify the long history of this country denying access to people based on race in every measurable category,” in a statement to The Times.

His comments are in keeping with his administration’s view of DEI being responsible for “illegal discrimination.” One of the first acts of his administration was to enact a series of executive orders to promote “merit-based” hiring processes.

Vice President JD Vance has also back the claim that DEI has hurt jobs prospects for white men. Last month, he shared an essay arguing such an idea, calling DEI “a deliberate program of discrimination primarily against white men.”