{"id":39073,"date":"2025-01-27T12:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-01-27T20:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=39073"},"modified":"2025-01-27T12:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T20:33:10","slug":"our-business-is-deemed-illegal-bay-area-firms-respond-to-trumps-effort-to-kill-dei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/27\/our-business-is-deemed-illegal-bay-area-firms-respond-to-trumps-effort-to-kill-dei\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Our business is deemed illegal\u2019: Bay Area firms respond to Trump\u2019s effort to kill DEI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Local companies and nonprofits are scrambling to recalibrate to President Donald Trump\u2019s executive orders attacking DEI initiatives. | Source:Mandel Ngan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Share<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Jillian D\u2019Onfro<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published\u00a0Jan. 25, 2025 \u2022 9:00am (SFStandard.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sangita Kumar wasn\u2019t shocked by President Donald Trump\u2019s executive orders this week attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives<\/a>; she\u2019d been anticipating them for months as part of the \u201cslowly building terror\u201d around his second term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as founder of Oakland-based Be the Change Consulting<\/a>, she\u2019s anxious about the social impact of the orders, as well as their ramifications on her 13-year-old business. Kumar started her firm to improve the culture of companies and organizations and has worked with the likes of BART and the de Young Museum. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re bracing for a dramatic shrinkage in our DEI portfolio,\u201d she said. Her San Francisco clients<\/a> for DEI training have included the Planning Department, the Department of Public Health, and a private school.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even before the orders, Fortune 500 companies like Meta, Walmart, and McDonald\u2019s<\/a> started slashing programs and departments focused on DEI. Trump\u2019s directives eliminate DEI-related programs at federal agencies but also signal that corporations and nonprofits could be investigated<\/a> for having such initiatives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, local companies and nonprofits built around this type of work are scrambling to recalibrate and find a way to work within the new regime \u2014 or around it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur team is taking time off right now to cope with the chaos of how things are unfolding,\u201d said Alex Suggs, cofounder of the consultancy Different DEI<\/a>, via email. Another diversity-focused startup founder refused to speak on the record in case \u201cour business is deemed illegal\u201d or could be targeted by lawsuits<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody\u2019s trying to be cautious \u2014 the main thing right now is just trying to wade through a lot of the confusion that\u2019s out here,\u201d said Bo Young Lee<\/a>, president of the nonprofit AnitaB<\/a> and former chief DEI officer at Uber. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AnitaB, which supports women in tech, and like-minded organizations are trying to parse exactly how the executive orders might affect their work. \u201cWe want to make sure that we can continue our mission but also stay within the guardrails being created,\u201d Lee said. \u201cWe just don\u2019t know what those guardrails really are right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She foresees a chilling effect on inclusion efforts at private firms, with grim results: She believes the cessation of DEI-related initiatives will make companies less effective, with worse output.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we get to a worst-case scenario, where organizations just have to stop all this work, I think we end up as a society with products that don\u2019t meet our needs and with services that just don\u2019t fit us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWe want to make sure that we can continue our mission but also stay within the guardrails being created,\u201d said Bo Young Lee of the nonprofit AnitaB. | Source:Courtesy of AnitaB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Eugene Dilan, founder of a consultancy<\/a> that has worked with global tech companies, sees a silver lining. Many DEI programs have been performative and have functioned as a \u201cdepartment bolted onto a company,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be an uphill battle, in terms of budgets being cut and people losing their jobs,\u201d Dilan said. \u201cBut it\u2019s causing a lot of reflection for people, which could be good in terms of reevaluating the approach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ineffective initiatives may be retired, as might the term DEI itself, which could be replaced with more precise language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That could mean new frameworks<\/a> that shed the politicization and demonization of DEI, according to consultant Lily Zheng.<\/a> \u201cAnti-DEI extremists often rely on misinformation claiming that DEI is itself \u2018reverse discrimination\u2019 or that it \u2018goes against meritocracy,\u2019\u201d Zheng said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amber Cabral<\/a>, a consultant<\/a> who previously ran diversity and inclusion efforts at Walmart, believes important inclusion work will still happen, though it may require \u201cwords that people can actually hear without being triggered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She expects that private companies will find ways to hire and support a diverse workforce. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m a believer that good people break bad laws,\u201d she said, \u201cand I\u2019m inclined to believe that that\u2019s likely to happen as laws that aren\u2019t working for the populace create more disconnection, frustration, and anger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jillian D\u2019Onfro can be reached at jdonfro@sfstandard.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Share By\u00a0Jillian D\u2019Onfro Published\u00a0Jan. 25, 2025 \u2022 9:00am (SFStandard.com) Sangita Kumar wasn\u2019t shocked by President Donald Trump\u2019s executive orders this week attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; she\u2019d been anticipating them for months as part of the \u201cslowly building terror\u201d around his second term. But as founder of Oakland-based Be the Change… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39074,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39073\/revisions\/39074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}