San Francisco has abandoned an effort to replace the city’s director of elections solely because he is white, after the mayor and other officials refused to allocate funding for the effort to find a more “diverse” replacement.

As Breitbart News reported last month:

The City of San Francisco’s Elections Commission voted 4-2 … not to renew the contract of its Elections Director, John Arntz, because he is white — i.e. to open the position in pursuit of the city’s “racial equity plan.”

The Mission Local website reported that Arntz was fired in spite of outstanding service over the past 20 years …

The San Francisco Chronicle noted that Arntz is eligible to reapply for his job — among all the other applicants.

Mayor London “Breed, city staff and citizens expressed concern at the commission’s move, quickly jumping to defend Arntz’s record of running fair, free and functional elections without a glitch, especially during an unprecedented pandemic,” the Chronicle added.

Now, the Chronicle notes, the commission has abandoned the idea after the city refused to fund a hiring search:

Instead of opening up the position to outside candidates, the commission voted unanimously to put Arntz’s contract up for a possible five-year renewal in January. Mayor London Breed and all 11 supervisors had already said they would not approve the estimated $50,000 necessary to pay for an executive search.

Commissioners had said they wanted to look at other candidates — alongside Arntz, if he reapplied for his job — to advance the city’s racial equity goals by giving a diverse group of people a chance to compete for the job. But the prospect of Arntz’s removal drew broad condemnation from local officials and City Hall staffers who see him as a respected leader of a well-run department.

San Francisco has experienced a public backlash against “woke” racial policies over the past year, including those targeting white and Asian residents for their supposed privilege.

In February, voters recalled three members of the local school board after a series of racially-charged policy changes. Later in the year, voters recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin over his radical policies of criminal justice “reform” amid a crime wave.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.