We have already covered on this blog Project 2025 from a couple important angles: what it means for health care and what it means for the environment.
But what about what it means for human rights? This is a critical question for us at Gray Panthers NYC, as one of the things we work to do is to “eliminate injustice, discrimination, ageism wherever they exist.”
As you can probably tell by the title, we believe that Project 2025 would have us go backwards when it comes to human rights. And there are more examples of this fact than what could possibly be listed in a blog post.
But here are three worth noting, out of the numerous examples:
It has pretty much nothing about advancing racial justice for African Americans. In fact, it has almost nothing when it comes to African Americans. The word “African American” is only mentioned once in the over 900-page document, and the word “Black” is mentioned just more than a handful of times in writing (and a few other times in citations). Worse yet, it wants to undermine and censor anything that brings to attention the ongoing inequalities that continue to impact people of color, such as proposing to eliminate the Treasury Department’s Advisory Committee on Racial Equity (1) and issuing “an executive order banning, and Congress should pass a law prohibiting the federal government from using taxpayer dollars to fund, all critical race theory training (CRT).” (2)
The document is nothing but bad news for LGBTQ+ Americans. It wants to keep transgender Americans from serving in the military (3) and expel people with gender dysphoria from military service (4). It wants to: “Rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics.” (5) It says that: “The next Administration should take particular note of how radical gender ideology is having a devastating effect on school-aged children today—especially young girls.” (6) It accuses this so-called “gender ideology” of being junk science. In a country where the American Psychological Association points to “an increased risk of suicide and poor mental health amid a record number of bills aimed at restricting the rights of the LGBTQ+ population,” (7) this rhetoric is unhelpful at best, destructive at worst.
Despite Former President Trump suggesting that abortion is for the states to decide now, Project 2025 wants to restrict abortion access. For example, the playbook suggests reversing approval of the common abortion pill mifepristone (8). And it wants to enforce a law that would keep abortion pills from being mailed—troubling because many women who decide to get an abortion rely on pills through the mail (9). Project 2025 wants to control women’s bodies.
Bad policies are ones where those who lose the most are those who can afford to lose the least—those on the margins. But this is what Project 2025 Does. And as such, Project 2025 is full of bad policies.
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(1) Pg. 708
(2) Pg. 582.
(3) Pg. 104
(4) Pg. 103
(5) Pg. 584
(6) Pg. 346
(8) Pp. 457-458.
(9) Pg. 458.
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