If you can’t convince them to drop DEI, then confuse them. 

Fear and confusion are the strategies Trump has deployed in an attempt to dismantle DEI with the signing of two executive orders on January 20th and 21st. Executive Order #14151, “Ending Radical Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” and Executive Order #14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” have sent the public and private sector into a state of shock and uncertainty. 

However, these orders as written, appear to be more bark than bite, and organization’s like Costco should continue to stand on business, knowing  that their DEI programs do not violate federal anti-discrimination laws. 

But the fear and confusion of withholding federal funding has been effective by causing many state and local governments to cancel DEI-related contracts and offices, or by softening their current DEI programs into “inclusion, opportunity, and access.”

The most damaging of Trump’s orders was the rescinding of President LBJ’s 1965 executive order, that required federal contractors who receive more than $700 billion in taxpayer dollars, to refrain from employment discrimination and take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity “based on race, color, religion, and national origin.” This sends the message to some of the largest corporations in the world, that they don’t have to comply since the government is no longer watching and won’t hold them accountable with the risk of litigation, financial penalties and debarment from obtaining federal contracts.

Trump’s orders are instructions to federal government departments, and they don’t mandate what the public and private sector must do. Executive orders are not federal laws, only Congress has that power. 

We must organize! We will not be passive by-standers and watch this administration deconstruct democracy, ignore civil rights and equal opportunity, for a mirage of a merit-based and color blind society– America must earn that status! And if you don’t have data, all you have is an opinion.