People Are Dragging the White House Intern Program for a Lack of Diversity

Visual proof of making America great again.

March 31, 2018

In an unsurprising move from an administration that once included white nationalist Steve Bannon, the White House has come under fire after releasing a visual of the 2018 spring intern class. In the photo, President Trump poses with the 91 members selected for this year’s program, and many were quick to point out that the group, which appears overwhelmingly white, isn’t reflective of America’s diverse population.

“According to the U.S. Census Bureau, three-fifths of America’s population is non-Hispanic white,” wrote Tim Porter of Newsweek. “In the photograph, white interns appear to make up a far higher proportion of the group.”

Twitter users were a bit more candid with their assessment of the new crop of interns.

According to Porter, the interns’ duties will include staffing events, researching, fielding inquiries and drafting memos. In theory, the opportunity looks great on a resume—even if the internship is performed under arguably one of the least popular Presidents in America’s history.

As other Twitter users noted, it's worth questioning whether it's causation versus correlation. Is the group less diverse because Trump is a Nazi sympathizer who gave the editor of Breitbart an official cabinet position? Or is this new crop the result of people of color simply not wanting to work for the man who inspired one of the largest organized protests on record?