As the first US president since the Civil Rights era to make racial justice a prime concern, Joe Biden has identified racial equity as a top priority of his White House agenda.
Rather than put the quest into a silo, he has instead laid out plans to evaluate every federal policy and project through a racial equity lens. He has connected the equity mission to efforts to raise the minimum wage, boost retirement security for people of color, introduce student loan forgiveness, and implement federal procurement rules that would mandate more spending on minority-owned businesses. By executive order, he directed the Justice Department to stop using private prisons, and directed the Department of Housing and Urban Development to “redress racially discriminatory federal housing policies.”
As a result, the Biden administration appears positioned to make legitimate progress toward closing racial gaps over the next four years.