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Some local officials vow to continue DEI as Trump removes programs at federal level

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

President Trump is ordering federal agencies to shut down their diversity, equity and inclusion work, but some local officials say their own DEI efforts will continue. Paul Singer reports from member station GBH News in Boston.

PAUL SINGER, BYLINE: Faustina Cuevas is the diversity, equity and inclusion officer in Lynn, Massachusetts, a multiethnic Boston suburb. Cuevas says that local governments take their mandate for inclusion from local officials, not from the president.

FAUSTINA CUEVAS: Regardless of what's happening at the federal level, we're steadfast on doing what we got to do on the ground. We're just going to keep full steam ahead. You know, I consider ourselves like an Amtrak. We're just going to go.

SINGER: Judith Crowell is the chief diversity officer in Springfield, Massachusetts. She says after President Trump issued his executive order, her mayor sent an email affirming the local diversity office should, quote, "continue its proactive activities." She says people simply don't understand what the work is really about.

JUDITH CROWELL: There's the misconception that it just has to do with hiring marginalized people to fill quotas, and it's so far from that.

SINGER: Crowell and other local diversity officials say their roles are about inclusion and fairness - racial equity, yes - but also making sure, for example, that people with disabilities, or senior citizens, or people who don't speak English as a first language can still be full participants in their communities. And they say that these things are central to successful local government. That may not be the view from everywhere. Steve Adler was the mayor of Austin, Texas, from 2015 to 2023. Adler said the state legislature took steps to block policies like DEI or immigration protections in progressive Texas cities.

STEVE ADLER: That same kind of thing does not happen in blue states. So if you're a blue city in a red state, you're in a very different political climate.

SINGER: But Marsha Guthrie says local officials should not assume DEI is going away in either blue or red states. Guthrie directs the Government Alliance on Race and Equity, a network of DEI workers in local and state government jobs.

MARSHA GUTHRIE: Local government is where people experience their everyday lives. When things change in your city or in your community, you're calling your mayor. You're not calling the president.

SINGER: For Guthrie, that proximity to the constituents means that local officials can't just walk away from equity initiatives that their citizens have demanded, even if the president says so. Her advice to local leaders is to not stop until you're told to.

GUTHRIE: Do not obey in advance. We don't yet know how these executive orders will actually affect you. So just because it's scary and tough and challenging right now, we don't want you to think that, oh, let me scrub equity from everything.

SINGER: Steven Reed agrees. He's the mayor of Montgomery, Alabama, and the head of the African American Mayors Association.

STEVEN REED: I don't think anyone is pressing pause on their projects because we know what residents and our citizens want in our communities. That's - they want us to get things done, not get mired in politics of Washington, D.C.

SINGER: That may be easier for Reed to say in Montgomery than for other places around the country that don't share that city's long civil rights history. Cuevas says it's easy in a blue state like Massachusetts, where she leads a coalition of about 50 colleagues who run DEI programs in their cities and towns.

CUEVAS: We feel really supported by our local municipalities, and we're not seeing folks in Massachusetts shy away from this work.

SINGER: But President Trump's anti-DEI initiatives are just getting started.

For NPR News, I'm Paul Singer in Boston.

(SOUNDBITE OF MAX HAYWARD'S "BIG BUDDHA") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Paul Singer