Charlie Kirk, who was until his recent passing a prominent conservative activist, built much of his career criticizing what he called the excesses of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. One of his recurring claims was that DEI policies resulted in people—especially Black Americans—being hired not for their skills or qualifications, but primarily for their skin color.

This argument was central to his critique of American institutions in his final years. But when examined against the broader sweep of U.S. history, Kirk’s position collapses. It fails to account for the deep, structural advantages that white Americans have enjoyed for centuries—advantages that amount to a form of generational “privilege” every bit as real, and far more pervasive, than the DEI “privilege” Kirk decried.

Kirk’s rhetoric against DEI was blunt, often provocative, and designed to resonate with audiences skeptical of what they saw as identity-based politics.

In 2024, on his show, Kirk remarked: “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’”

When discussing the hiring of a fire chief in Austin, Texas, he declared: “But when you hire people based on race, you are not hiring people based on skill… You see when you hire fire chiefs based on diversity, you get morons. You don’t get smart people.”

He also criticized the legacy of the Civil Rights Act, claiming it created a “permanent DEI-type bureaucracy” that distorted fair hiring practices.

For Kirk, the through-line was simple: DEI was “anti-merit,” and therefore “anti-American.” He portrayed these programs as lowering standards, producing incompetence, and creating resentment.

At first glance, Kirk’s critique appeals to a basic sense of fairness. Shouldn’t jobs go to the most qualified candidate, regardless of race? But this framing conceals a critical truth: the United States has never been a level playing field.

For centuries, white Americans have enjoyed systemic advantages in wealth, education, housing, and access to opportunity:

• Wealth: According to the Federal Reserve, the median wealth of white families in 2019 was nearly eight times that of Black families. This gap is not the product of individual merit, but of structural inequalities—from slavery and Jim Crow to discriminatory housing policies like redlining.
• Education and networks: White families disproportionately had access to better-funded schools, SAT tutors, legacy admissions to elite universities, and alumni networks that translate directly into jobs and internships.
• Cultural capital: From interview coaching to mentorship to simply “knowing the right people,” white Americans have long benefited from unearned advantages that boost their résumés and job prospects.

In other words, being white has functioned as a silent form of DEI—except it wasn’t called that. It was simply the status quo.

Kirk often spoke as if merit were a clean, objective measure. But qualifications themselves are shaped by privilege. Test scores, polished résumés, extracurriculars, internships—all of these are easier to accumulate if you start from a position of wealth and access.

By contrast, many Black candidates may have had to overcome underfunded schools, systemic bias, or fewer professional connections, even as they demonstrated equal or greater talent. DEI policies are not about discarding merit, but about recognizing how narrow definitions of “merit” often serve to entrench privilege.

Kirk derided DEI hires as “handouts,” but rarely acknowledged the countless ways white Americans receive invisible handouts:

• Legacy admissions at Harvard, Yale, and other elite institutions heavily favor white applicants.
• Generational wealth allows white families to subsidize unpaid internships, prestigious volunteer work, or early-career risks that less wealthy families cannot afford.
• Professional networks provide opportunities that never show up on a job application, but are every bit as decisive in hiring.

These advantages are rarely framed as “undeserved.” Yet they are no less a distortion of “merit” than any DEI policy Kirk criticized. Would Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have been appointed U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services if he had not come from a wealthy, prominent, white family? Is he qualified for the position in which he currently serves? Is Donald Trump qualified to be President of the United States?

Kirk treated DEI as an artificial intrusion into a naturally fair system. In reality, DEI initiatives are attempts to correct systemic imbalances that have historically excluded people of color.

DEI does not mean hiring unqualified candidates. It means widening the lens of evaluation—recognizing talent and potential where conventional hiring practices, steeped in bias, might not look. It means challenging the assumption that “best qualified” always looks like the same narrow profile: white, affluent, and connected.

Without such correctives, the cycle of exclusion simply reproduces itself, generation after generation.

Kirk’s anti-DEI stance, when stripped of rhetorical flourish, rested on the notion that merit was pure and DEI corrupted it. But the historical and social record tells a different story:

• Merit has never been neutral. It has always been entwined with privilege.
• White privilege is generational. It accumulates advantages invisibly, passing them down as though they were individual achievements.
• DEI is not anti-merit. It is an effort to expand fairness by countering barriers that Kirk ignored.

To critique DEI without reckoning with the far larger, longer, and more entrenched history of white advantage is to miss the point entirely.

Americans should have an honest conversation about merit, fairness, and opportunity.

That conversation must include:

• Transparency in hiring and admissions practices.
• Recognition of how privilege operates—across race, class, and generations.
• A commitment to both excellence and equity, not one at the expense of the other.

Kirk argued that DEI hires were based on skin color rather than qualifications. The reality is that for centuries, white skin functioned as a qualification all its own.

Until we acknowledge that truth, critiques of DEI will remain not only incomplete, but fundamentally dishonest.

For generations, Black people and other communities of color were routinely denied jobs simply because of their race. These exclusions were reinforced by unequal access to education, the result of systemic racism that limited opportunities for quality schooling and advancement. In the workplace, a white-dominated hierarchy perpetuated itself by favoring “people like me,” relying on confirmation bias rather than evidence-based hiring practices.

That legacy has not disappeared. Studies continue to show that equally qualified Black applicants receive fewer callbacks than white applicants with identical résumés, and that women and people of color remain underrepresented in leadership positions across industries. Instead of ensuring that the most qualified candidates are chosen, many hiring systems still replicate historical patterns of exclusion. DEI initiatives exist to challenge and correct these ongoing inequities—not to create them.

I’ve dedicated significant time to working alongside marginalized and under-resourced communities through the Boys and Girls Club, homeless resource centers, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and the Special Olympics. I also taught at a Title I school and provided social services, including job placement assistance, in prisons and jails. In every role, I’ve witnessed firsthand the disparities in housing, education, food, healthcare, and employment that stem directly from generations of systemic racism in America—disparities that continue to shape outcomes today.

By the same logic Kirk applied to Black professionals, I could look at a white pilot and assume he was unqualified and owed his position to privilege. But that is not how I see the world. Instead of making assumptions rooted in fear or resentment, we must confront inequality honestly and work toward a society where qualifications and opportunities are truly accessible to all.

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Andrew Kirschner is the founder of Epic Walking Tours in New York City. He leads tours that explore the history of the civil rights, immigration, animal rights, women’s suffrage, labor rights, and LGBTQ+ movements.