The Legal Insurrection Foundation and its Equal Protection Project have led the way in taking on “Intersectionality,” particularly federal funding of this ideology which has captured the campuses and is the foundation for anti-Americanism, anti-Capitalism, and antisemitism.
You may recall my December 2o25 NY Post op-ed, Toxic fuel for far-left terrorists came straight from our colleges, and our March 2026 presentation to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
In April 2026, LIF and the Defense of Freedom Institute (DFI) released a major research and policy report, Intersectionality – The Rise of a Dangerous Anti-American Ideology, and How to Stop it. In that report we called, among other things, for Intersectionality to be included under the definition of DEI for the purpose of Executive Orders barring federal grants incorporating discriminatory DEI criteria.
In July 2026, we submitted a comment to OMB calling on it to include a bar on funding of Intersectionality in a federal grant rulemaking proposal, LIF to OMB: Strengthen Federal Grantmaking Nondiscrimination by Barring Funding of Intersectionality.
LIF and DFI just released a follow-up Report honing on on the federal funding problem, Federal Spending on Intersectionality – The Case for Executive Action to End Identity-Based Preferences in Federal Grantmaking:
Executive Summary
On May 29, 2026, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed a Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance that seeks, among other things, to ensure that federal agencies do not use unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology as a basis for awarding taxpayer funding to projects. While that proposed rule represents a necessary step toward the Trump Administration’s laudable goal of restoring lawful, neutral, and merit-based criteria to federal grantmaking, this report identifies a practical gap that agencies and recipients could otherwise exploit in spite of this and other positive efforts: the risk that recipients of federal funding will use intersectionality and related identity-politics frameworks to preserve identity-based preferences under newer, more technical terminology.
The spending record makes the policy concern concrete. This report identifies nearly 250 federal award records on USAspending.gov using the keyword “intersectionality,” with approximately $230 million in reported obligations and $140 million in reported outlays, subject to ordinary USAspending.gov updates and reconciliation. The awards show that intersectionality has moved from academic theory into taxpayer-funded programs, including research, training, outreach, equity measurement, technical assistance, institutional-change projects, and program design.
The response should be targeted and practical. OMB should clarify that neither agencies nor recipients of federal funding may use protected characteristics directly, through proxies, or through intersectional composite categories when the practical effect is preferential or adverse treatment.
In addition to such clarification by OMB, President Trump should issue an executive order, building on existing executive orders and policies addressing DEI, unlawful discrimination, and merit-based federal action, to close the intersectionality loophole expressly. Agencies should then issue conforming guidance documents so grant officers, contracting officers, program staff, reviewers, auditors, and recipients understand that intersectionality and equivalent identity-stacking frameworks cannot be used to evade neutral, merit-based rules.
The Summary provides a quick overview and call to action:
Key Points
- The money is real. A USAspending.gov search identified 249 federal assistance award records using the keyword “intersectionality,” totaling about $230 million in obligations and about $140 million in outlays, subject to normal data updates.
- The reach is wide. The awards cut across health research, STEM education, disability policy, violence prevention, technical assistance, institutional-change projects, conferences, curricula, equity measurement, and program design at multiple agencies.
- The issue is not over. Many awards appear to remain active, with performance periods extending into 2027, 2028, 2029, and 2030. That gives agencies room to stop future outlays or redirect funds under lawful, neutral criteria.
Recommended Action
- A presidential executive order should close the intersectionality loophole across grants, cooperative agreements, trainings, reporting systems, compliance requirements, and other federal assistance activity.
- Agency guidance should translate that rule into day-to-day practice for grant officers, reviewers, auditors, program staff, and recipients, including funding notices, scoring, award conditions, cost allowability, monitoring, audits, corrective actions, and closeout.
- A revised OMB rule should state that protected characteristics may not be used directly, through proxies, or through composite intersectional categories.
The NY Post covered the Report:
Taxpayers are funding $230 million in largely Biden-era grants to study woke “intersectionality” — the assessing of factors such as race and class to rate “privilege’’ and potential discrimination, a new report says.
The Defense of Freedom Institute and Legal Insurrection Foundation, both right-leaning policy groups, said their review found 249 records of federal-assistance spending — propelled during the Biden era — that used the keyword “intersectionality.’’
“Race-obsessed ‘Intersectionality’ doctrine provides the toxic fuel for radical anarchist groups like the Turtle Island Liberation Front, and is the mothers’ milk for destructive anti-American and anti-capitalist agendas that dominate campuses,” said William Jacobson, the founder of Legal Insurrection Foundation, to The Post.
“Amazingly, we have discovered that the federal government has been funding the Intersectionality movement,’’ said Jacobson, a Cornell Law School professor.
“This has to stop.”
Intersectionality is a belief system in which people’s race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and other characteristics are used to assess their privilege and potential discrimination.
Grants flagged by the report indicate the research exploded during former President Joe Biden’s tenure, reaching a peak of $80.1 million in 2023, for a total of $140 million in spending to date and another $90 million earmarked.
The funding levels since dropped under President Trump.
Some of the programs have performance periods that go through 2030.
The intersectionality funding awards vary greatly from certain types of scientific research done under the National Institutes of Health to museums to federal funding for community living.
In a lot of cases, the government was funding something such medical research, in which grant applicants wove in intersectionality principles.
This was apparent in some of the awards that are specific to colleges and universities, including $10.99 million to the New Hampshire Department of Health for cancer prevention and control programs and $7.53 million to the University of California, San Francisco, for an Asian American cancer cohort, the report said.
The New Hampshire cancer research grant was aimed at targeting “populations that experience health disparities across the cancer continuum and experience intersectionality of gender and income inequality.”
Other grants made intersectionality a front-and-center issue, including a $8.16 million to New York University for a “National Center for Engagement in Diabetes Equity Research” and a $14.25 million grant to Drexel University for “Catalyzing Systemic Change at Drexel University to Support Diverse Faculty in Health Disparities.”
The 23-page report raised concerns that the intersectionality focus in those grants means that grant recipients will take that federal funding for “unlawful identity-based decision-making to continue while appearing more technical and less explicit.”
It further contended that the practice of ranking people “according to ideological assumptions about oppression and privilege based on group membership” is flawed.
“This report shows just how deeply intersectional ideology has become embedded in the federal grant-making apparatus,” said Defense of Freedom Institute President and co-founder Robert Eitel to The Post.
“Federal agencies must ensure that grants are used to advance the purposes Congress authorized and address real public needs, not bankroll an ideological framework designed to divide Americans into categories of privilege and oppression.”
Roughly 100 of the 249 flagged grant obligations appear to be active at the moment. Jacobson’s organizations previously pushed the Trump administration to crack down on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) as well as critical race theory (CRT) initiatives.
The two groups are encouraging Trump to take executive action to root out federal funding for intersectionality initiatives.
“Having eliminated CRT and DEI from federal grants, the Trump administration should close the Intersectionality loophole and stop federal grantmaking for programs that promote Intersectionality,” Jacobson told The Post.
Reminder: we are a small organization going up against powerful and wealthy government and private institutions devoted to DEI discrimination. Donations are greatly needed and appreciated.
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