Latest news with #diversityEquityInclusion
The Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Civil rights agency's acting chief to face questions on anti-DEI, transgender stances
The acting chief of the country's top agency for enforcing worker rights will face questions at a Senate committee hearing Wednesday over her efforts to prioritize anti-diversity investigations while sidelining certain racial and gender discrimination cases and quashing protections for transgender workers. Andrea Lucas, who was first appointed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2020 and elevated to acting chief in January, is one of four Labor Department nominees to appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Her nomination to serve another five-year term as an EEOC commissioner requires Senate confirmation, though whether she stays on as chief will be up to President Donald Trump. Lucas, an outspoken critic of diversity, equity and inclusion practices and promoter of the idea that there are only two immutable sexes, has moved swiftly to enact Trump's civil rights agenda after he abruptly fired two of the EEOC's Democratic commissioners before the end of their five-year terms, an unprecedented move in the agency's 60-year history that has been challenged in a lawsuit. Lucas is prioritizing worker rights that conservatives argue have been ignored by the EEOC. That includes investigating company DEI practices, defending the rights of women to same-sex spaces and fighting anti-Christian bias in the workplace. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, chairman of the Senate committee holding the hearing, has championed many of those causes. He accused the EEOC under the Biden administration of 'injecting its far-left" agenda into the workplace, including by updating sexual harassment guidelines to warn against misgendering transgender workers and including abortion as a pregnancy-related condition under regulations for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Questioning the EEOC's independence Democrats on the committee are likely to grill Lucas over criticism that she overstepped her authority by profoundly shifting the EEOC's direction to the whims of the president in the absence of a quorum, which commission has lacked since Trump fired the two commissioners. Sen. Patty Murray, a member of the committee, said she will oppose any EEOC nominations unless Trump reinstates the two fired Democratic commissioners, which she and more than 200 other Democratic senators and Congress members condemned in a letter to the president as an abuse of power. 'President Trump is weaponizing the independent EEOC to serve his personal political agenda, firing commissioners without cause and warping the mission of the EEOC beyond recognition,' Murray said in a statement ahead of the hearing. 'Commissioner Lucas is a right-wing extremist who has been in lockstep behind Trump's pro-discrimination agenda.' Lucas has made clear her views of the limitations of the EEOC's autonomy. In a recent memo to employers, Lucas declared that the 'EEOC is an executive branch agency, not an independent agency" that will "fully and robustly comply" with all executive orders. That includes two orders that Trump signed in January: one directing federal agencies to eliminate their own DEI activities and end any 'equity-related' grants or contracts, and the other imposing a certification provision on all companies and institutions with government contracts or grant dollars to demonstrate that they don't operate DEI programs. The EEOC's new approach alarmed more than 30 civil rights groups, which sent a letter to the Senate committee demanding that Lucas face a hearing. The groups argued that the EEOC was created by Congress under 1964 Civil Rights Act to be a bipartisan agency that would function independently from the executive branch. The EEOC, the only federal agency empowered to investigate employment discrimination in the private sector, received more than 88,000 charges of workplace discrimination in fiscal year 2024. Its commissioners are appointed by the president to staggered terms, and no more than three can be from the same party. Much of the EEOC's authority is granted by Congress, including the obligation to investigate all complaints and enact regulations for implementing some laws. EEOC shifts the focus of discrimination cases Under Lucas, the EEOC dropped seven of its own lawsuits on behalf of transgender or nonbinary workers. It also moved to drop a racial discrimination case on behalf of Black, Native American and multiracial job applicants after Trump ordered federal agencies to stop pursuing discrimination that falls under 'disparate impact liability,' which aims to identify practices that systematically exclude certain demographic groups. Instead, Lucas has turned the EEOC's attention to investigating company DEI practices. In her most high profile move, she sent letters to 20 law firms demanding information about diversity fellowships and other programs she claimed could be evidence of discriminatory practices. Lucas has also repeatedly encouraged workers nationwide to come forward with DEI complaints. She launched a hotline for whistleblowers and said workers should be encouraged to report bad DEI practices after a Supreme Court decision made it easier for white and other non-minority workers to bring reverse-discrimination lawsuits. ________ The Associated Press' women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Conservative opponents of DEI may not be as colorblind as they claim
Critics of diversity, equity and inclusion programs, commonly referred to by the acronym DEI, are increasingly using boycotts and bans to fight against their use. People often argue that this anti-DEI backlash is motivated by race-neutral concerns – for example, that DEI practices are irrelevant to work performance or are too political. But our research published in 2024 in the peer-reviewed Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, suggests that conservative critiques of DEI often boil down to one thing: anti-Black racism. As psychology researchers, we wanted to understand why people react to DEI the way they do. So, we recruited more than 1,000 people to take part in three related studies. For each study, we measured participants' conservatism on a seven-point scale ranging from extremely liberal to extremely conservative. Single-item measures such as this are often used by researchers. We also measured participants' anti-Black racism using the symbolic racism scale, which is a well-validated and commonly used measure of anti-Black racism. Research suggests that as overt racism has become less acceptable, people tend to direct racism toward symbols of racial equality, like DEI. That meant the symbolic racism scale was an ideal measure of anti-Black racism for our purposes. In the first study, we asked participants to read a job advertisement from either a company that emphasizes DEI or a company that emphasized teamwork and good professional relationships. Then, participants rated their interest in the job and how fair they thought the company was. In later studies, they also indicated how well they thought they'd fit in. We found that participants who scored higher on our measure of conservatism expressed significantly less interest in pursuing a job at the company promoting DEI, and viewed it as less fair compared with the company promoting teamwork. We then added symbolic racism to our statistical model. Once we did that, our measure of conservatism no longer predicted job interest or perceived fairness in the pro-DEI company condition. In other words, symbolic racism accounted for the effect of conservatism on outcomes in the DEI condition. This suggests that conservative participants' reactions to DEI aren't independent from symbolic racism. We expanded on these findings in our following studies. In the second study, participants were randomly assigned to read descriptions of similar pro-DEI or pro-teamwork companies. Additionally, half of the participants were told why the organization supported either DEI or teamwork, and the other half were not. We found that participants who scored higher on conservatism expressed less interest in applying for a job at the pro-DEI company and viewed it as being less fair, regardless of whether DEI – or teamwork – was clearly tied to job-related criteria. We estimated statistical models similar to the ones we built in the first study. And we again found that when we added symbolic racism to our statistical model, negative views of the DEI company disappeared. Thus, negative reactions to the pro-DEI organization seemed to reflect race-related rather than job-related concerns. In the third study, participants read job advertisements for a pro-DEI, pro-teamwork or pro-family-values company. The pro-family-values company was described as seeking to preserve traditional values. We found that participants who more strongly endorsed conservatism were more interested in applying for a job at that company, and viewed it as more fair and a better 'fit' in the pro-family-values scenario. The opposite was true of reactions to the pro-DEI company. When we added symbolic racism to our models, we found that positive views of the pro-family-values company remained significant, but negative views of the pro-DEI company disappeared. This suggests that opposition to DEI is rooted in anti-Black racism, not concerns about politics. Given the fraught political environment, organizations will need to address criticisms of DEI programs. Successfully responding to these criticisms requires addressing the underlying motive — which our research suggests is often anti-Black racism. As part of the hiring process, many companies and organizations ask job applicants about their views on DEI or what they've done to promote it. In our study, we included requests for similar statements. However, no one has tested whether people's answers to these statements actually predict performance related to DEI. That's what our team plans to examine next — whether someone's stated views on DEI can forecast job outcomes like collaborating effectively in diverse teams. The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work. This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Abigail Folberg, University of Nebraska Omaha; Laura Brooks Dueland, University of Nebraska Omaha, and Mikki Hebl, Rice University Read more: The backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion in business is in full force − but myths obscure the real value of DEI How DEI rollbacks at colleges and universities set back learning Court blocks grants to Black women entrepreneurs in case that could restrict DEI efforts by companies and charities Abigail Folberg receives funding from the National Science Foundation and has previously received funding from the Society for the Psychological Study for Social Issues, the American Psychological Foundation, and The Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Laura Brooks Dueland is a co-founder of Inclusion Analytics, LLC. Mikki Hebl does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Associated Press
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Most books pulled from Naval Academy library are back on the shelves in latest DEI turn
WASHINGTON (AP) — All but a few of the nearly 400 books that the U.S. Naval Academy removed from its library because they dealt with anti-racism and gender issues are back on the shelves after the newest Pentagon-ordered review — the latest turn in a dizzying effort to rid the military of materials related to diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Based on the new review, about 20 books from the academy's library are being pulled aside to be checked, but that number includes some that weren't identified or removed in last month's initial purge of 381 books, defense officials told The Associated Press. A few dozen books at the Air Force libraries — including at the Air Force Academy — also have been pulled out for review, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is still ongoing. The back-and-forth on book removals reflects a persistent problem in the early months of the Trump administration, as initial orders and demands for an array of policy changes have been forced to be reworked, fine-tuned and reissued because they were vague, badly defined or problematic.
Associated Press
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump administration's transit and homelessness grant conditions
Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year] SEATTLE (AP) — The Trump administration is temporarily blocked from imposing new conditions on hundreds of millions of dollars worth of mass transit grants for the Seattle area or homelessness services grants for Boston, New York, San Francisco and other local governments, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. The new conditions were designed to further President Donald Trump's efforts to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion policies; coerce local officials into assisting with the administration's mass deportation efforts; and cut off information about lawful abortions, according to the lawsuit filed last week by eight cities and counties. The administration argued that Senior U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle did not have jurisdiction over the lawsuit because it was essentially a contract dispute that should have been brought in the Court of Federal Claims — an argument the judge rejected. Rothstein wrote that the local governments had shown they were likely to win the case, because the conditions being imposed on the grants had not been approved by Congress, were not closely related to the purposes of the grants and would not make the administration of the grants more efficient. 'Defendants have put Plaintiffs in the position of having to choose between accepting conditions that they believe are unconstitutional, and risking the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grant funding, including funding that they have already budgeted and are committed to spending,' Rothstein wrote. Her order blocks U.S. Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Transportation Administration for 14 days from enforcing the new grant conditions or withholding or delaying funding awarded under the grants. The local jurisdictions said they would seek a longer-term block in the meantime. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. King County, which includes Seattle, sued over changes to grant conditions for homelessness services as well as mass transit funding that helps pay for maintenance of the region's light rail system. Boston and New York, Pierce and Snohomish Counties in Washington, the city and county of San Francisco, and Santa Clara County in California all sued over the changes to homelessness services grants. 'Today's ruling is a positive first step in our challenge to federal overreach,' King County Executive Shannon Braddock said in a statement. 'We will continue to stand up against unlawful actions to protect our residents and the services they rely on.' ___ AP reporter Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.
