On Jan. 20, 2025, Donald J. Trump will begin his second time period as president of the USA, and this time, he’ll lead the nation after the Supreme Court docket’s resolution to finish race-based affirmative motion in schools and universities. If Challenge 2025 and the primary Trump administration present any clues, then the second Trump administration will possible take an aggressive stance to research and dismantle variety, fairness and inclusion (DEI) insurance policies each in and outdoors of the federal authorities. Certainly, the Trump marketing campaign was express {that a} second Trump administration would concentrate on “anti-white racism,” and that it will be “dedicated to removing discriminatory packages and racist ideology throughout the federal authorities.”
As nonprofits think about their present DEI insurance policies and put together for the incoming Trump administration, they need to pay attention to the elevated federal investigative threat. Since Republicans will management each chambers of Congress, nonprofits could turn into prime targets in having to answer government and Congressional department investigations associated to their DEI practices. Nonprofits ceaselessly develop and champion DEI efforts, typically doing in order a core a part of advancing their mission. Regardless of the utility these packages could carry to society, Republicans could make nonprofit DEI packages the main focus of federal investigations. For instance, nonprofits that present grants to traditionally underrepresented communities, or nonprofits that spotlight their efforts to make various hires, may have to organize for intense scrutiny within the speedy future.
What We Know Concerning the Incoming Administration
The Heritage Basis organized The 2025 Presidential Transition Challenge, extra generally referred to as Challenge 2025, to supply “the appropriate conservative coverage suggestions and correctly The Heritage Basis vetted and skilled personnel” to the second Trump administration. Related right here, Challenge 2025 articulated a roadmap (opens as a pdf) of what the Division of Justice ought to do to dismantle DEI initiatives.
Particularly, Challenge 2025 advises the Trump administration to “[r]eorganize and refocus the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to function the vanguard for this return to lawfulness[,]” specifying that the Civil Rights Division ought to “spend its first 12 months … utilizing the total pressure of federal prosecutorial assets to research and prosecute all state and native governments, establishments of upper training, companies, and another non-public employers who’re engaged in discrimination in violation of constitutional and authorized necessities.”
Which means President-elect Trump might prioritize these investigations on day one in all his time period.
Challenge 2025’s agenda is a continuation — and vital growth of — the work of the primary Trump administration. In 2020, the Trump administration issued letters to non-government entities associated to their hiring practices and public statements about historic discrimination.
Moreover, these conservative efforts are ongoing in Congress, too. In June 2024, Congressional Republicans launched a invoice to ban DEI packages and funding within the federal authorities, led by Sen., and now Vice President-elect, J.D. Vance. And in August 2024, Sen. Invoice Cassidy referred to as for an investigation into schools’ and universities’ use of federal funds for DEI efforts (opens as a pdf). Whereas these investigative and legislative efforts didn’t straight concentrate on nonprofits, after the Supreme Court docket’s affirmative motion resolution, conservative litigation teams have additionally focused nonprofits and their packages.
What Does This Imply for Nonprofits Transferring Ahead?
Guided by Challenge 2025, we anticipate the second Trump administration, alongside Congressional Republicans, to launch anti-DEI investigations into organizations, particularly nonprofits. In getting ready for potential investigations, listed here are three steps your nonprofit ought to full.
1. Conduct an Inside Evaluation
Whether or not your nonprofit receives an inquiry or is just getting ready for the likelihood that you’ll obtain scrutiny, organizations ought to think about conducting an inside assessment to establish potential packages, practices or communications that could possibly be inclined to authorized legal responsibility. As a part of this assessment, nonprofits might establish what DEI packages exist throughout the group, how they work and the way the group is speaking about these packages — each throughout the group and to members of the general public.
Moreover, nonprofits must also assessment whether or not members of their authorized workforce are concerned within the group’s conversations about DEI, in addition to what sorts of paperwork are being created and retained. Then decide whether or not paperwork are doubtlessly protected by privilege.
2. Concern a Authorized Maintain and Evaluate Report Retention Insurance policies
Upon receiving any type of inquiry from a governmental entity, nonprofits ought to difficulty a authorized maintain over related workers’ paperwork and assessment document retention insurance policies to make sure responsive paperwork are retained and never inadvertently destroyed.
3. Have interaction Skilled Investigations Counsel
Nonprofits ought to think about hiring skilled counsel upon receiving any communications from governmental workers — starting from formal subpoenas to extra casual inquiries by way of e mail. Hiring skilled exterior counsel will streamline communications with the investigating entity. Outdoors counsel can even function a key liaison with federal staffers. Additional, these investigative efforts are ceaselessly overbroad, and hiring exterior counsel could assist with narrowing the scope of the investigative requests, to the extent it’s possible.
The previous put up was offered by a person unaffiliated with NonProfit PRO. The views expressed inside don’t straight replicate the ideas or opinions of NonProfit PRO.
