In just one week following Trump’s inauguration—
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ordered its civil rights division to halt a majority of its functions, including a freeze on pursuing new cases, indictments or settlements — the division is to not file “any new complaints, motions to intervene, agreed-upon remands, amicus briefs, or statements of interest.” The division is to suspend its activity until Trump’s new appointee, Harmeet Dhillon, is confirmed by the senate. Dhillon has a long history of working to roll back voting rights.
Another memo directed attorneys to notify leadership of any settlements or consent decrees — court-enforceable agreements to reform police agencies — that were finalized by the Biden administration within the last 90 days. The intent is to reconsider these decrees.
The DOJ’s civil rights division is primarily tasked with enforcing laws prohibiting discrimination — from disability rights to housing, immigrant and civil rights — but it’s also the branch of the DOJ tasked with enforcing voting and election law.
Additionally, Trump signed at least a dozen executive orders designed to undermine protections for marginalized people. Among these was a declaration that the US government will only recognize two genders, male and female.
Other measures seek to end programs that try, “to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life,” meaning the elimination of DEI programs from every government agency.
Since, and in only a few days’ time, government employees have been directed to inform on fellow employees who espouse attitudes or language supporting DEI, much the same way as an employee might be required to report infractions involving sexual abuse in the workplace.
Like a giant bomb, the ripple effect of such actions is quick to spread well outside the nucleus of government. In just a few days, major companies all over the US have announced their discontinuation of DEI policies, changing and destabilizing workplace environments throughout the country.
Similarly, the administration’s harsh initiatives to eradicate birthright citizenship and deport both legal and illegal immigrants throughout the US have destabilized many workplaces and cast fear into the lives of many ordinary US citizens.
The damage, however, goes much deeper. In the same way that Americans have been conditioned to believe immigrants coming across the southern border are murderers, rapists, drug dealers, and insane asylum inmates, now many are raising an eyebrow to their neighborhood Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, Jews, and anyone else who might have a different ethnic or racial background than they.
In more simple terms, we’re rolling back all of the hard-won gains in civil rights this country has fought for and replacing them with the antiquated notion that only whites belong to the master race and all others come second. What is not-so-cleverly being disguised as a “meritocracy” is actually anything but. The “meritocracy” only applies if you’re white.
But this attack on civil rights was in play before Trump’s second term came into being.
In 2023, the FL Board of Education, at Ron DeSantis’s urging, changed its standards of education. Black History was altered to present “a more balanced” version of slavery in America and mitigate its enduring impacts.
Let me make a bold assertion. There is nothing “balanced” about the practice of slavery in America or anywhere else. The history of slavery can never be anything but a barbaric manifestation of inequality and a human tragedy, and the residuals from this practice in America persist in our society today in the form of racism.
Since changing these standards of education, Gov. DeSantis has ordered all references to critical race theory be eliminated from educational curriculums. It is a subject that is forbidden to be taught, discussed, or contemplated in any form by Florida’s teachers and students.
As a footnote, discussions of transgender issues are also banned under his “don’t say gay” policy. Not as directly related, but worth mentioning, climate change is another topic that has fallen victim to censorship.
But, like eating elephants, these issues have to be taken on ‘one bite at a time.’ The bite I chose to take, when I decided to write I AM JAYVYN, was the assault on Black History. The enslaved paid too great a price to have their history watered down and whitewashed as it is passed on to future generations. This serves no one. Beyond the obvious affront to the African American citizens of the US, everyone who stands to benefit from the lessons of history, which is everyone, is harmed as well. Our civilization only advances to the degree that we learn from the lessons of the past. That is an indisputable fact.
In the few short years since I started the book, the problem has become much worse, as only partially indicated by events since Trump’s inauguration. Eighteen states now have active laws regulating or prohibiting discussing issues of race, the history of racism in America, or critical race theory in schools. Books associated with these topics, including those chronicling the civil rights movement, are being pulled from library shelves.
By immediately suspending the activities of DOJ’s civil rights division, a brick was placed on the accelerator, amplifying the systemic inequities described by the topic of critical race theory.
Some of these systemic issues that Gov. DeSantis and his kind don’t want to recognize stem from the iniquitous laws created during the Jim Crow era. Laws allowing real estate covenants to exclude Blacks. Laws establishing barriers, such as literacy and civic testing, to voting. Laws allowing blatant discrimination in hiring practices or access to education. All of this trickled through our civic institutions to create the conditions contemplated by the study of critical race theory. Manifestations include ‘redlining’—the practice of qualifying loans or insurance rates based on the demographics of a region or neighborhood. In the same way, higher quality schools, hospitals, and other public institutions were developed in regions with more affluent populations—not in Black neighborhoods.
While it’s true that we began efforts to repair the damage, culminating with the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, systemic racism was already deeply embedded within our institutions and couldn’t simply be waived away through the passage of an act. However, it was a start. It created the basis for equal protection under the law by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. In other words, fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion. It was affirmative action taken to fulfill the promises of the 14th and 15th amendments to our constitution, enacted after the Civil War to provide citizenship rights and equal protection under the law for all American citizens, regardless of color or ethnicity.
The Civil Rights Act was also heralded as the act to bring about the end of the Jim Crow era.
As of January 21, 2025, the essence of the provisions under this act have been declared “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral,” and policies to address DEI, or DEIA (the A is for accessibility), have been termed illegal. Read that word again—illegal. This is all publicly stated by the Trump administration at this very moment and can be read in full at whitehouse.gov.[1] Similarly, at the Office of Personnel Management, State Department, and Department of Homeland Security, web addresses that once led to DEI guidance now display “Page Not Found — 404.” All as of January 21, 2025.
Now, using your mind, imagine the regressive effect these measures will have on our society. It’s easy. Just work backward in time to the Jim Crow era. Blacks don’t have to be given equal opportunity, so they won’t. The same goes for equal protections under the law. Hate crimes will become more and more tolerated until finally legitimized. Not just for Blacks, but for gays, disabled persons, and anyone else with a comparative disadvantage in a society of white privilege. The marginalized population will be increasingly marginalized.
The actions and policies of our government create the permission structure for its citizens. Don’t expect government officials to be the only ones going around implementing and carrying out regressive behavior. The work will be done by our citizens as we learn, again, to categorize each other and our entitlements based on the color of our skin. It is a regressive path leading straight back to Jim Crow. It’s why we needed those amendments, acts, and laws in the first place.
This was the reason for writing I AM JAYVYN. It was not just to recreate a horrible experience through the eyes of a victim of the transatlantic slave trade, but to counter a dangerous reversal in our social narrative, one of the drivers being the rewriting of history. We can see the effects of denialism manifesting now. We are being fed false narratives from our highest level of authority. It is the very definition of the term ‘ignorance,’ and that will be the result—a society brainwashed into ignorance, ignorant of all the important gains we’ve made in learning how to be a country with liberty and justice for all—the United States of America.
[1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/
To receive information about upcoming projects and blog posts, please click the link below.
Peter D Brown, Author 
Thoughts or impressions? Love to hear them.