In the U.S. racial discrimination is only prohibited for the State governments (see the 14th Amendment):
| No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; [...]
and then the courts have interpreted this to mean that the Federal government does have the right to "make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States". I.e., the Federal government may discriminate on the basis of race (as one example of that which is forbidden to the States), but only subject to statutory authorization (i.e., a bill passed by Congress which then becomes law).
This is because in the aftermath of the Civil War the Radical Republicans in the North expected they'd have to force some discrimination against {White, Democrat} Southerners / for Black Southerners as part of Reconstruction. But statutory authorization for racial discrimination is still required, and by and large there is not much such statutory authorization left on the books. That means that almost every DEI program in the U.S. that uses racial discrimination is suspect if not outright illegal. With an incoming DoJ that's likely going to be sympathetic to that view, suddenly all these DEI programs have become a major liability.
| No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; [...]
and then the courts have interpreted this to mean that the Federal government does have the right to "make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States". I.e., the Federal government may discriminate on the basis of race (as one example of that which is forbidden to the States), but only subject to statutory authorization (i.e., a bill passed by Congress which then becomes law).
This is because in the aftermath of the Civil War the Radical Republicans in the North expected they'd have to force some discrimination against {White, Democrat} Southerners / for Black Southerners as part of Reconstruction. But statutory authorization for racial discrimination is still required, and by and large there is not much such statutory authorization left on the books. That means that almost every DEI program in the U.S. that uses racial discrimination is suspect if not outright illegal. With an incoming DoJ that's likely going to be sympathetic to that view, suddenly all these DEI programs have become a major liability.