Businessman and Republican 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy told Newsmax on Monday that if elected, he will use an executive order to immediately end affirmative action.
"The real systemic racism in America is the use of race-based affirmative action to use quota systems in the places we work, to our universities, to our schools," Ramaswamy told "Eric Bolling The Balance." "The good news is that a U.S. president can actually end it."
Ramaswamy said the policy, enacted by former President Lyndon Johnson through an executive order would be ended the same way on his first day should he be elected president.
"A U.S. president started it by executive order, Lyndon Johnson did, and every U.S. president since then, including [former President Donald] Trump, could have ended it with the stroke of a pen. I think it has been a touchy issue for a lot of Republicans. It is not a touchy issue for me.
"I'm going to take it on and it is one of the things I think I can do on the first day is to eliminate affirmative action by executive order."
Smithsonian Magazine in November 2022 broadly defined the term as "policies and practices designed to increase opportunities for historically underrepresented groups."
Although the term has roots back to the 1930s regarding labor law, it was Johnson's 1965 executive order 11246 that gave the policy its diversity focus outlawing discrimination in employment by federal contractors on the "basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin."
Ramaswamy told the audience at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference during the weekend that the policy has become "a cancer" on the country and people should only be judged on their character.
"What does it mean to be an American? It means you believe in merit," he said during his CPAC speech. "That you get ahead in this country not on the color of your skin but the content of your character and your contributions. That is why as U.S. president, I have pledged to get rid of affirmative action in this country once and for all. It is a national cancer on our soul."
Ramaswamy said his polices are taking the America First movement to "another level." That includes Americans uniting around shared beliefs and principles like meritocracy, where you move forward based on your merit rather than other factors, such as race.
"[I want to revive] the basic principles of what it means to be American," he said Monday. "One of those principles is indeed, yes, meritocracy in America, putting the merit back into America."
About NEWSMAX TV:
NEWSMAX is the fastest-growing cable news channel in America!
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.