I was astounded by Theresa Toni’s letter to the editor titled “Racial Discrimination,” published Feb. 18 in print in The Baltimore Sun. In that letter, Ms. Toni argues that DEI hires will somehow undermine America’s meritocracy and by eliminating DEI all that President Donald Trump wants to do is to enable the emergence of a pure meritocracy. That’s a laugh.

Most of the people Mr. Trump nominated to work in his cabinet, who’ve been confirmed, do they belong to the meritocracy of the United States? What is the experience of Mr. Pete Hegseth to lead the Pentagon or any organization of the size, scope and budget of the Pentagon? Could it be his experience as weekend host at Fox News that qualifies him for this position or could it be his public drinking bouts?

How about the appointment of Robert Kennedy as head of the Department of Health and Human Services? How does that comport with the idea that Mr. Kennedy has been appointed because he belongs to the meritocracy, when he’s a confirmed anti-vaxxer who has traded in conspiracies about vaccines and has marketed these conspiracies for personal profit? For that matter, Mr. Kash Patel for head of the FBI, is he qualified because he boasted about having an “enemies list” of Trump’s opponents he would target for prosecution? A meritocracy should not consist of only loyalists. Mr. Trump is an absolutist who does not brook opposition within his ranks. He believes in the patronage system of crony capitalism, not in meritocracy.

Ms. Toni presents us with a hypothetical question that when two people have applied for the same job of pilot and the DEI candidate out of the two is less qualified than the non-DEI candidate who is more meritorious and qualified, then who should be picked for the position. Her implicit bias shows in the way she phrases this hypothetical. Cannot a person be a DEI candidate and also meritorious? Cannot a DEI candidate be talented, knowledgeable and innovative? It seems to me, in Ms. Toni’s mind, DEI candidates cannot make the cut to join the American meritocracy just by virtue of being DEI candidates.

The writer infuses her question with the stench of prejudice and presents it, in her letter, as an innocent supposition. Let me phrase the same question this way: If a talented and highly qualified DEI candidate and his non-DEI counterpart, both, apply for the same position of pilot should the DEI candidate be denied the job, on the assumption he has to be inferior because inferiority is written into his DEI status?

The Trump administration loses its right to discuss the American meritocracy one because it is headed by Mr. Trump, two because he has nominated many people who cannot be considered meritorious or deserving of the positions for which he has chosen them and three because Trump 2.0, at its inception, is proving to be brutal, incompetent and impetuous.

— Usha Nellore, Bel Air