“The three orders we are challenging today perpetuate false and longstanding stereotypes that Black people and other underrepresented groups lack skills, talent and merit — willfully ignoring the discriminatory barriers that prevent a true meritocracy from flourishing,” Janai Nelson, the president of the defense fund, said in a statement.
Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal’s H.I.V. project director and lead counsel on the case, said in a statement that “these policies drip with contempt for transgender people, and pose a significant threat to critical health and H.I.V. services that support marginalized communities, putting lives at risk.” He added that the two organizations teamed up because “the fights to end racism, the H.I.V. epidemic and anti-transgender bias are inseparable.”
The National Urban League, one of the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organizations that focuses on economic mobility in the Black community through work force development trainings and programs, would see “catastrophic” effects on its community should it lose funding, the complaint said. Many of its programs are supported by the Labor Department, and the organization currently has 19 active federal grants, totaling $62 million and accounting for 35 percent of its annual budget.
“The assault on diversity, equity and inclusion is discriminatory at best and an attempt at institutionalized economic oppression at its worst,” Marc Morial, the league’s president, said in a statement.
The National Fair Housing Alliance, a civil rights group that works to eliminate housing and lending discrimination, and receives grant support from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, would be required to stop using words that are embedded in the laws that it helps people navigate. It received a stop-work order last month as a result of the D.E.I. order. A follow-up email from the department informed the alliance that grants with the words “underserved,” “affirmatively,” “systemic,” “adversely,” “accessible” and “disparate,” among others, would be scrutinized.