4 min readNew DelhiMar 5, 2025 02:49 PM IST
First published on: Mar 5, 2025 at 02:49 PM IST
Addressing a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, US President Donald Trump said that the country “will be woke no longer,” urging that hirings will be done on the basis of merit. In an unfiltered comeback to House of Representatives, Trump reiterated that his administration has ended the “tyranny” of diversity and inclusion.
Waging war against ‘wokeism’, Donald Trump said in the House of Representatives, “Our country will be woke no longer. We believe that whether you are a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer or (an) air traffic controller, you should be hired and promoted based on skills and competence, not race or gender.”
“Wokeness is trouble, wokeness is bad, it’s gone and we feel so much better for it, don’t we?” the US President added.
Trump’s stance on ‘wokeism’ remained firm throughout his presidential campaign and the first six weeks of his term, where he decided to discard several major Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programmes from industries and educational institutes.
‘Only two genders in America,’ says Trump
During his address, Donald Trump recalled his list of executive orders, including one ordering a crackdown on gender dysphoria. The US President made it clear that there are only two genders in America – male and female.
He further called on Congress to pass a bill “permanently banning and criminalising sex changes on children,” saying that his administration is now working on permanently pushing out wokeness from US schools, military and society.
Trump said, “I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie and our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you. Because we are getting wokeness out of our schools and out of our military and it’s already out and it’s out of our society.”
What is ‘wokeism’?
The term woke, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, means “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”. ‘Wokeness’ in the United States mainly refers to being well informed regarding gender spectrum, racial bias, and cultural issues.
The dictionary traced the origins of the word to African American English, gaining momentum during the Black Lives Matter movement. It further said that by the end of 2024, the word “is also applied by some as a general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning.”
Trump’s agenda against ‘anti-wokeness’
Donald Trump, in one of the first executive orders signed by him, moved to dismantle the DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policies initiated by his predecessor Joe Biden.
Since 2016, Trump has rigorously backed the agitation against DEI policies in schools, industries and the military, which as seen as ‘anti-white’ policies by a section of conservative American citizens. One of the most prominent DEI policies banned by Trump during his second term as President is titled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.”
He also passed an order titled ‘Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,’ which aims at discouraging federal departments and agencies from awarding contracts to companies with DEI policies.
President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday. (Photo: AP) 
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