Stephen Miller was one of the most strident anti-immigrant, white-nationalist sympathizers in former President Donald Trump’s administration. And, believe me, sticking out for that reason in that administration is really saying something.
After maligning foreigners who want to come to America, Miller is now on a mission to eradicate what he says is bigotry targeting white men.
After spending his time in Trump’s administration maligning foreigners who want to come to America and promoting a zero-tolerance policy that ripped children from the arms of undocumented immigrants crossing the southern border, Miller is now on a mission to use the courts to eradicate what he says is bigotry targeting white men.
“I think that it is inescapably true that there is insidious and explicit discrimination against White Americans, Asian Americans, Indian Americans and Jewish Americans based on their skin color and their ancestry,” he told The Washington Post. Note the people he included on his list of people he says are being discriminated against, and the people he excluded.
His list makes clear the groups he’s targeting: African Americans and Hispanics and the laws that were crafted to help them overcome racism.
As for white people being discriminated against, data shows this is laughable. White men are wildly overrepresented in elected office and as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and have the lowest unemployment rate of anybody in the country. But the facts don’t matter. Miller’s mission is likely to hit a nerve with white people, as polls show more and more of them believe that white men are the victims in today’s society. According to a University of Maryland Critical Issues Poll in May, nearly a third of white Americans insist that they have seen “a lot more” discrimination against white people in the past five years.
Miller popped up during the midterm elections earlier this year, running ads trying to convince white Americans that President Joe Biden’s administration is out to get them. As The Washington Post has reported, his America First Legal is targeting set-aside and anti-discrimination programs in court and cherry-picking judges. Miller may be hoping to find cases to take to the ultra-conservative Supreme Court, which would be likely to rule with him.
Remember, Chief Justice John Roberts, the closest thing to a moderate on the court’s conservative side, once wrote, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Of course, Roberts has yet to explain how to stop the historical suspects — white men — from discriminating against others. He has, however, overseen a court that took the teeth out of the Voting Rights Act, a move that suggests a belief that discrimination against African Americans is no longer worth the court’s attention.
White men are wildly overrepresented in elected office and as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
Miller’s group has filed dozens of lawsuits in federal courts aimed at making sure the government doesn’t make good on its attempts to fight the effects of racism and sexism. His group helped kill the part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan that set aside $4 billion in loan relief for historically disadvantaged farmers.
The provision was added because the white men who ran the Agriculture Department, the state governments, the local town governments and the Southern law enforcement either actively discriminated against or sat by and watched as white Southerners cheated or stole land from Black farmers. In 1910, Black farmers owned more than 16 million acres (6.5 million hectares) of land, but in 2017, they had less than 4.7 million acres (1.9 million hectares). Black farmers lost at least $326 billion of wealth in the 20th century, according to a study led by Dania V. Francis of the University of Massachusetts Boston.
But Miller and white farmers argued that the government’s plan to address that past discrimination discriminated against them. There are clear advantages to being a white man in America. The Reflective Democracy Campaign reported last year that 91% of sheriffs, 76% of governors, 72% of elected prosecutors, 67% of U.S. senators, 63% of county officials, 60% of statewide officials and 58% of the U.S. House were white men. In Fortune 500 companies, 86% of CEOs are white men, SHRM reported. The irony is that, with all these white men in charge of things, Miller is trying to convince white men that they are being discriminated against? By whom? White men? It’s not the present that has people like Miller so afraid. It’s the future. As America becomes less white, the unnatural advantage that white men have enjoyed — enforced too often by the barrel of a gun, a noose or an all-white government — should be expected to erode. Daddy won’t be able to get junior a job or an admission letter from an Ivy League school the same way his daddy got him one. The good ol’ boy network won’t guarantee a contract, a promotion or even a foot in the door. That would mean, of course, that the land of opportunity is actually a land of opportunity for everyone. But we already know what Miller will call it: a land that hates white men.
Jesse J. Holland
Jesse J. Holland, an award-winning author, professor and journalist, teaches journalism at the School of Media & Public Affairs at George Washington University and was a longtime congressional, Supreme Court and White House reporter with The Associated Press. He is the author of two African American history books about Washington, D.C., and has written for major entertainment franchises, including Lucasfilm’s "Star Wars," DC Comics’ "Superman" and Marvel’s "Black Panther." 
