Many on the right have called Vice President Kamala Harris a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hire. Those on the left often view that framing as offensive. 

For Context: In 2019, President Joe Biden said of his VP pick, “Whomever I pick, preferably it will be someone who was of color and/or a different gender, but I’m not making that commitment until I know that the person I’m dealing with I can completely and thoroughly trust as authentic and on the same page.” 

From the Right: "As for Harris, if she or anyone else has a problem with her being associated with DEI, they should take it up with President Joe Biden himself," said a writer for Washington Examiner (Lean Right). "This is the heart of DEI — choosing people because of their race, ethnicity, or sex, and thinking that we are a tribal nation in which we should identify with 'people who look like us' rather than any of our compatriots, no matter their national origin or sex."

From the Left: "Gasparino’s use of 'DEI hire' apparently to demean the achievements of a person of color is far from the first time we’ve seen this," said CNN Opinion (Left bias) columnist Dean Obeidallah. For the New York Times Opinion (Left bias), columnist Lydia Polgreen argued that if Kamala Harris is a DEI hire, so is J.D. Vance. "All politics is, at some level, identity politics... Vance’s entire business and political career has flowed from his life story, which is embedded in identities he did not choose."