The Impact of

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The latest attacks on DEI represent an attempt to gut our historic Civil Rights laws and framework and re-whitewash America’s history of racial subjugation. These efforts seek to halt the pursuit of racial justice-or any progress towards a multiracial democracy at all. These attacks were ignited after the 2020 killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor, when as a result of the upwards of 20 million people in cities across the country taking to the streets calling for justice, workplaces, schools, and other institutions announced plans to expand DEI efforts and to incorporate or shore up anti-racism principles into their practices.
Despite President Biden’s revocation on his first day in office of former-President Trump's Executive Order 13950, which banned federal training on systemic racism in an effort to ban conversations on race, and Biden’s issuance of two Executive Orders-13985 and 14091-to advance and further advance, respectively, racial equity and support for underserved communities, the backlash has not only continued, but intensified.
Trump’s Executive Order served as the template for most of the educational gag orders and bills introduced to limit instruction on systemic sexism and racism in 40 states, 20 of which are now law. And, in the year since the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action, restricting race-conscious college admissions, not only have we seen its effect across education, but in every area where equity efforts are being made to right the wrongs of the past and level the playing field for all people.
This conversation between Cathy Albisa, Vice President of Institutional and Sectoral Change at Race Forward, and Dariely Rodriguez, Deputy Chief Counsel, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, delves into the bills that have been introduced, the laws passed, the fights still in progress, the wins we have seen, and and the implications of these attacks on the movement for racial justice