By Erin Overbey
For those who were not able to join us for the KCBA Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Lunch on January 17, 2025, you missed an inspiring presentation by our keynote speaker, Dr. Marsha Currin McGriff. She flew across the country to share details of how and why her work as the Senior Advisor to the President and Chief Diversity Officer at the University of Florida ended. In short, her job became a violation of the law championed by Florida Governor Ron Desantis, in 2023. The law1 made it illegal to “expend any state or federal funds to promote, support, or maintain any programs or campus activities that: …[a]dvocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion”. With a stroke of a pen, Dr. McGriff and her staff became unemployed because their jobs violated the new Florida law.
It is hard for me to imagine that state leadership could eliminate the work that many of us have embraced and worked to incorporate into our workplaces and in our profession. But as Dr. McGriff pointed out, Florida is not the only state to do so. Effective January of 2024, the State of Texas followed suit, enacting its own statutory2 limitations on DEI work. Texas prohibits a diversity, equity, and inclusion office in its universities; hiring anyone to perform DEI work; and giving any preference to applicants for employment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. (Tex. Educ. Code § 51.3525). It is safe to assume there will be other states adopting the mindset of Governor DeSantis3, who contends that DEI work amounts to “woke indoctrination” in schools.
Some of you may advise on DEI work for your clients or apply this framework in your own firm or workplace. And you do so, knowing that our state law and leadership in many private and government offices (including mine) support efforts to eliminate discrimination, despite I-2004, which prohibits preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, education, or contracting. I admit that, in the past, I have taken for granted that legislators and leadership are headed in the direction that embraces and celebrates our differences and that they seek a path that helps all of us to thrive. But we cannot be complacent in the spread of distrust and even hostility directed at DEI work. In case you have missed it, there are plans afoot to retract some of the protections that are important to an Association that promotes access to justice and equity.
Corporate leadership is turning its back on DEI work. Meta5 announced last month that it is walking back its DEI work: it will end internal programs designed to increase hiring of diverse candidates and suspend its equity and inclusion training programs. Amazon6 made a similar announcement last month, reporting it is halting some of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Similar sentiments have been shared by Microsoft, Walmart and Boeing. If you are looking for a large scale retailer that refuses to go down this path, look to Costco. They have doubled down on what they believe is the best path for their company, despite threats that they can expect legal challenges to their inclusive policies.
On inauguration day, the President issued an executive order7 terminating all mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities that promote “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility”. He contends that DEI programs are discriminatory and illegal. This order applies to the country’s largest employer; the federal government. It is hard to believe that national leadership would attempt to take us back to the pre-civil rights era based on the notion that giving everyone equal opportunities is a form of discrimination, and yet it is right there in the Order. Legal challenges are sure to follow.
On the subject of legal challenges, it is heartening to see that our new Attorney General is clearly not complacent in response to the new President’s sweeping policy changes on immigration. Less than 24 hours after the inauguration, Nick Brown announced his legal challenge to the administration’s interpretation of the guarantee in the 14th Amendment which provides “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.” The President and his team contend that this clause has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States. In fact, there is a case8 (United States v. Wong Kim Ark) dating back to 1898, which considered this very issue and held that a man born in San Francisco, to Chinese parents , acquired his U.S. Citizenship at birth and did not lose that status because his parents were subjects of the Emperor of China.
This brings me back to the very reason this Bar Association formed in 1886. The KCBA is the product of attorneys who saw injustice and took a stand. They did so in response to community members, including attorneys, who attempted to force persons of Chinese descent out of their homes and businesses and onto waiting trains and ships in the harbor. But the Mayor, the Sheriff, a local judge and U.S. District Attorney pushed back. They served the captain of the ship with a writ of habeas corpus and began a bar association of like-minded attorneys. Their first resolution criticized attorneys who participated in the anti-Chinese mob, calling them “pestilential agitators” who are “abandoning every useful calling” and “arraying one class against another” and by doing so are “the worst enemies of society.”
The KCBA exists, in part, to address legislation, orders and other actions that undermine our attempt to promote equity and inclusion. It is not the time to stay under the radar and hope that your workplace or organization will not be adversely impacted. It is not the time for complacency. Our KCBA leadership takes seriously the need to promote diversity; it is among the highest priorities identified in our strategic plan. I hope you join us in supporting this important work.
1 https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/266/BillText/er/PDF
2 https://casetext.com/statute/texas-codes/education-code/title-3-higher-education/subtitle-a-higher-education-in-general/chapter-51-provisions-generally-applicable-to-higher-education/subchapter-g-responsibilities-of-governing-boards-system-administrations-and-institutions/section-513525-responsibility-of-governing-boards-regarding-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-initiatives#:~:text=November%2021%2C%202023.-,Section%2051.3525%20%2D%20Responsibility%20Of%20Governing%20Boards%20Regarding%20Diversity%2C%20Equity%2C,violation%20of%20Subdivision%20(1).
3 https://www.npr.org/2022/07/13/1110842453/florida-gov-desantis-is-doing-battle-against-woke-public-schools
4 https:/lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/1997-9
5 https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/10/read-the-memo-meta-announces-end-of-its-dei-programs.html
6 https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/10/amazon-halt-dei-programs-.html
7 https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/
8 https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/169/649/#tab-opinion-1918089
