NEW YORK — Civil rights groups on Thursday celebrated President Joe Biden’s swift revocation of a Trump administration order that had banned federal agencies, contractors and recipients of federal funding from conducting certain diversity training.
The order had targeted workplace trainings that explored systemic racism and privilege, which former President Donald Trump had deemed “un-American” and potentially harmful to white workers. The Department of Labor had already suspended enforcement of the order after a California federal court granted a preliminary injunction against it in response to a lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal, an organization that advocates for the rights of LGBT people.
Biden’s move “underscores the priority he attaches to the United States government grappling honestly with implicit bias, racism and sexism in this country,” said Noel Twilbeck, chief executive officer at CrescentCare, a New Orleans non-profit that was part of that lawsuit. CrescentCare, which provides health and housing services to LGBT communities, was among the organizations affected by the order because it receives federal funding.
Camilla Taylor, director of constitutional litigation at Lambda Legal, said Biden’s decision ensures that organizations “don’t have to look over their shoulders constantly to wonder if someone is going to report them and if it will lead to them losing their federal funding.” She said several of Lambda Legal’s clients are already taking steps to resume training that had been suspended because of the order.
The Trump administration had said the order prohibited training that implies anyone is racist or sexist “by virtue of his or her race, sex, and/or national origin.” Civil rights groups said the wording was overly broad and had a chilling effect on workplaces trying to address concepts like white privilege, systemic racism and unconscious bias.
Within the government, the order had prompted the Justice Department to suspended all diversity and inclusion training. The State Department, Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Veteran Affairs had also cancelled some programs.
“In the few months of its existence, it negatively impacted the lives and livelihoods of countless Americans and advanced the dangerous cause of white supremacy and disinformation, said Janai Nelson, associate director-counsel of the NAACP’s Legal Defence Fund, which had filed a separate lawsuit against the order on behalf of the National Urban League and the National Fair Housing Alliance.
“We will continue to work to ensure that all vestiges of President Trump’s Executive Order are removed from workplaces across the country,” Nelson added.
In a separate but related effort, the Labor Department last fall opened inquiries into companies including Microsoft and Wells Fargo over their publicly announced efforts to boost Black employment and leadership. Trump administration letters had warned both companies against using “discriminatory practices” to meet diversity goals voiced by CEOs over the summer in response to Black Lives Matter protests.
The Labor Department did not immediate respond to questions Thursday about whether the inquiries are still being pursued. Microsoft and Wells Fargo declined to comment.
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AP Business Writer Matt O’Brien contributed to this story.
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Puppet Biden and the dishonorable democrat Party do NOT want people to know:
Since its founding in 1829, the Democratic Party has fought against every major civil rights initiative, and has a long history of discrimination.
The Democratic Party defended slavery, started the Civil War, opposed Reconstruction, founded the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), imposed segregation, perpetrated Lynchings, and fought against the civil rights acts of the 1950s and 1960s.
Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. All were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Democrat-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by blacks during the Reconstruction period.
Yep, Uncle Joe, the white man is bad. Oh, Joe, you are white, aren’t you?
The re-education gulags are back.
ANd will be in full swing. IF YOU ARE white, male, conservative or christian, you are now the ONLY GROUP allowed to be persecuted.. AND DOING SO will be celebrated.