No More Diversity and Inclusion

When the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in 2023, many organizations in the public and private sector committed to doing more to create a diverse workforce understanding that only through understanding the needs of everyone can we all move forward as a society.

Then in 2024, the state legislatures in both Georgia and Alabama banished diversity and inclusion funding in state government including at state universities and in the awarding of state contracts; and within months offices at state agencies, state universities had reassigned staff members and closed its agencies.

In Alabama even the makeup of state boards was in question. Those who were paying attention thought this was bad.

Then… with the stroke of a pen the world as we knew it changed. President Trump signed an executive order on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs revokes an order issued by President Lyndon Johnson and effectively ends DEI programs and funding by federal contractors and grant recipients. Little is known about how all of this will affect existing programs and funding.

Trump even blamed the crash between an American Airlines jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter on Jan. 29^th near Washington, D.C., on diversity promotions during the Biden Administration, without any evidence.

During his remarks he spoke about how the United States needed people of “superior intelligence” to work in the aviation industry.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union: “With these actions, the administration is not only undoing decades of federal anti-discrimination policy, spanning Democratic and Republican presidential administrations alike, but also marshalling federal enforcement agencies to bully both private and government entities into abandoning legal efforts to promote equity and remedy systemic discrimination. Trump’s executive orders undermine obligations dating back to the Johnson administration that firms doing business with the U.S. government and receiving billions in public dollars are held to the highest standards in remedying and preventing bias.”

Just a few sentences from the executive order provides a significant understanding.

“Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.  Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.

“These illegal DEI and DEIA policies also threaten the safety of American men, women, and children across the Nation by diminishing the importance of individual merit, aptitude, hard work, and determination when selecting people for jobs and services in key sectors of American society, including all levels of government, and the medical, aviation, and law-enforcement communities.  Yet in case after tragic case, the American people have witnessed first-hand the disastrous consequences of illegal, pernicious discrimination that has prioritized how people were born instead of what they were capable of doing.”

This executive order even ends the Equal Employment Opportunity, and it orders the heads of each federal agency to select “up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars” to be investigated to see if they are complying with his new orders.

Schools are universities are scrambling to see how this will affect their students. This measure says that with four months of this order “the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall jointly issue guidance to all State and local educational agencies that receive Federal funds, as well as all institutions of higher education that receive Federal grants or participate in the Federal student loan assistance program under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1070 et seq., regarding the measures and practices required to comply with Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).”

Stay tuned. It’s going to be a long four years.