‘Stay tuned’: Civil rights groups prepare to take on Trump’s DEI ‘distortion campaign’

Civil rights leaders are still grappling with the weight of President Donald Trump’s swift and sweeping executive orders eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion and rolling back decades-old policies meant to guard Black and brown Americans from racial discrimination. But while many are contemplating and strategizing, it’s clear that civil rights groups aren’t going to take the orders lying down.

“Stay tuned,” Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, told theGrio when asked about legal action the organization and others are expected to take in the future.

During a “Demand Diversity” roundtable of civil rights leaders convened by the National Urban League, Janai Nelson, director-counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, telegraphed that there would be litigation on behalf of civil rights groups to combat Trump’s executive actions, which included orders reversing the federal government’s stance on enforcing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial, gender and religious discrimination.

The civil rights lawyer called Trump’s actions an “assault on core principles of our democracy” and said Black and brown communities “must reclaim the meaning of the 14th Amendment,” which is at the core of the Civil Rights Act and has been successfully used by white litigants in recent years to unravel racial equity programs in both the federal government and private sector. The Trump Justice Department went as far as to order its Civil Rights Division to freeze all pending civil rights litigation.

Last week, House of Representatives Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries vowed that Democrats, along with civil rights groups, would take the attacks on DEI “head-on.”

Morial, the former mayor of New Orleans and an attorney, said there are “fundamental flaws” in Trump’s orders, and that he “cannot do by executive order what he seeks to do.” He explained, “You cannot alter the Civil Rights Act of ’64 by an executive order when there’s been 60 years of court decisions and a federal statute that undergird how these laws are implemented.”

The civil rights leader described Trump’s orders — including one seeking to end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship — as “an overreach in terms of the use of presidential power.” He continued, “It’s very important that this conversation that we’ve been having about democracy is at the center of this. This is not the president going to Congress. This is a president trying to do these things unilaterally.”

Despite the real implications of Trump’s targeting of DEI and seemingly anything related to race, Morial dismissed the Trump administration’s first-week actions as being nothing more than a “distortion campaign.” He referenced a poll conducted by The Harris Poll and Black Economic Alliance that found that a majority of Americans — nearly 80% — across racial, ideological, and generational lines support DEI; in that they believe corporate America should “reflect the racial diversity of America,” support businesses taking steps to ensure that diversity and agree that racial diversity in the business sector “leads to greater profitability and innovation.”

“There’s a distortion campaign that he’s running and that they’re running … that somehow these offices promoted some kind of preferential treatment. You can’t even find any evidence that supports any of that,” said Morial, who accused Trump of trying to “undo” a “consensus” on civil rights that has traditionally been bipartisan.

“It’s been stronger under Democrats, but even [President Richard] Nixon had a program of Black capitalism. Even Nixon signed Voting Rights Act extensions,” he recalled.

Regardless, civil rights leaders say they are up for the battle against the Trump administration.

“The landscape may seem uncertain, but the legal grounds upholding equal opportunity remain firm. As civil rights advocates, we are prepared to challenge attempts to undermine these essential liberties and continue to champion a nation where every person’s contribution is welcomed and valued,” said Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

The civil rights lawyer added, “By redefining equal opportunity initiatives as discriminatory, it threatens to investigate organizations committed to fostering diversity and inclusion, creating an atmosphere of fear that could suppress the very practices that have driven innovation and dynamism across sectors. It seeks to benefit some groups over others, which is the opposite of what civil rights laws demand.”

Though Trump’s orders only have authority over the federal government’s handling of DEI, his “merit-based opportunity” EO also calls for combating “illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.” Several companies, including Target and Walmart, announced the ending of DEI policies both before and after Trump took office.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who led a “buy-in” at Costco for its doubling down on its commitment to DEI, told MSNBC, “We intend to boycott some of these companies, but we’re going to do it strategically.”

He added, “We must organize because we must remember, we only got those rights … in the first place because we fought, which is why we’ve been methodical and strategic.”

Marc Morial told theGrio that the National Urban League has not yet endorsed any boycott, but discussions about “leveraging the over $5 trillion in buying power of Black, Latino and Asian communities” have been “very prominent” in civil rights circles.

“No one is going to … start just throwing things out there. This is too serious. Any steps that are taken ought to be thoughtful and carefully orchestrated,” he said, adding, “the use of buying power is something that people are quite interested in.”

However, Morial also pushed back against the notion that Trump and Republicans’ anti-DEI agenda has completely won the day in the business world.

“The people who’ve walked away have gotten a lot more publicity than those that have stayed firm because many who stayed firm aren’t putting out press releases,” he told theGrio.