Anti-DEI Legislation as an Unjust Permission Structure:

A Critical Discourse Analysis of White Racial Resentment in State-level Anti-DEI Bills

Abstract

This article argues that state-level anti-DEI legislation, through technical communication texts, deliberately grants permission for white people to enact racial violence. Complicating common understandings of permission structuring, I argue that unjust permission structures target and amplify white racial anxieties, creating a decision-making environment that authorizes social and political harm. Through critical discourse analysis of 16 anti-DEI bills introduced in state legislatures in 2023, I identified three key rhetorical strategies used to yoke white publics toward harmful rhetorical action: White Rage, which challenges pro-Black advancement; White Narcissism, which centers control and surveillance to uphold white power; and Deflecting Histories, which seeks to erase or revise narratives of white supremacist violence. My analysis reveals that these rhetorical tactics achieve two interconnected outcomes: first, they stoke white racial anxiety and fragility; second, they alter the legislative choice architecture in ways that embolden behaviors harmful to DEI advocates, communities of color, and others targeted by the broader “war on woke.”