Leading Civil Rights Groups Condemn the Latest Executive Order Attempting to Roll Back Protections
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Leading Civil Rights Groups Condemn the Latest Executive Order
Attempting to Roll Back Protections
Washington, D.C. — The President has issued a new Executive Order with the misleading title “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy.” The Executive Order purports to dismantle a longstanding and core component of the nation’s civil rights legal infrastructure, commonly known as disparate impact. The nation’s leading civil rights organizations have united in condemning this latest effort by the Trump Administration to roll back key civil rights protections.
The Executive Order badly misstates how disparate impact works. It falsely claims disparate impact deprioritizes merit-based decision-making and requires employers, housing providers, and others to engage in racial balancing or quotas. Nothing could be further from the truth. What disparate impact requires is the removal of unjustifiable barriers that prevent people from getting fair opportunities. Anyone actually interested in equality of opportunity and meritocracy should be in favor of disparate impact, not against it. Disparate impact has been incorporated into legislation by bipartisan majorities of Congress and is enshrined in civil rights statutes signed by Presidents from both parties. This important tool has been used for decades to protect millions of people in all aspects of their lives, including housing, employment, health, voting, and education.
By this Executive Order, the administration announces its intent to dismantle core civil rights protections authorized by other branches of government. Its action is an unlawful overreach. An Executive Order cannot overrule existing laws passed by Congress. Moreover, multiple federal courts have sanctioned the use of disparate impact under civil rights laws. In 2015, the Supreme Court upheld the use of disparate impact in the Fair Housing Act (FHA), finding that Congress intended such a result. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy stated in Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project that recognition of disparate impact claims “is consistent with the FHA’s central purpose” to “eradicate discriminatory practices within a sector of our Nation’s economy.” This Executive Order attempts to make new law without following the constitutional process.
Even more disturbing, the administration’s Executive Order instructs federal agencies to review and potentially overturn existing regulations and court-approved legal settlements. In addition, the Executive Order instructs the Attorney General to determine whether these federal pronouncements can preempt state law in the area of disparate impact discrimination. Far from respecting America’s principles of federalism and constitutional rights, this Executive Order is designed to suppress laws passed by states and municipalities and curtail the unfinished work of advancing civil rights.
“The disparate impact tool is a requirement for addressing stubborn and systemic policies and practices that keep people locked out of the opportunities people need to thrive,” said Lisa Rice, President and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance®. “It safeguards people and ensures families with children are not denied housing due to overly restrictive occupancy standards. It prohibits policies that result in lending and insurance redlining and protects women from eviction when they report domestic violence to the police. Disparate impact helps prohibit the adoption of restrictive zoning ordinances that prevent people with disabilities from accessing affordable housing. It is also essential in prohibiting the use of algorithms that generate unfair, inaccurate, and biased decisions. Pretending that certain policies, systems, and practices do not unnecessarily discriminate against some groups is disingenuous and sets our nation back. We all prosper when everyone has an equal chance to access important housing, credit, employment, business, and voting opportunities within the law.”
“The Administration’s most recent Executive Order to end disparate impact is another blatant attempt to roll back equity through fair lending practices, equal employment laws, contracts, and other hard-fought gains of the Civil Rights Movement, said Derrick Johnson, President & CEO, NAACP. “The NAACP will continue our fight for civil rights, which is crucial for equity and inclusion in our society. This is not the 1930s, and we will hold accountable anyone seeking to harm our communities and erase progress towards an inclusive America.”
“Governing by fiat, this President once again tramples on decades of established practice. But this Executive Order is more than lawless; it’s a discriminatory decree that turns back the clock on essential safeguards,” said John C. Yang, President and Executive Director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC (Advancing Justice – AAJC).
“The Executive Order is yet another clumsy attempt by the executive branch to repeal a valid, lawful, and necessary tool—one that has been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court—for enforcing our civil rights laws,” said Marc H. Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League. “Discrimination today is sometimes like a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Disparate impact allows civil rights enforcers to see the gnarly teeth of the wolf beneath the sheep’s fancy clothing—and stamp it out. Disparate impact means discrimination can run, but it cannot hide.”
“Everyone deserves an equal opportunity to get hired for a job or promoted, rent an apartment or buy a home, apply for a loan, or access services paid for by the federal government,” said Todd A. Cox, Associate Director-Counsel at the Legal Defense Fund. “By deprioritizing disparate impact across the federal government, President Trump’s executive order is clearly meant to undermine civil rights law enforcement and make it much harder for us to protect Black communities and countless others from policies and practices that unfairly discriminate against them and keep them locked out of opportunity.”
“For more than 75 years, the civil rights community has worked together to secure the passage of laws that protect every single American from discrimination in employment, education, housing, transportation, health care, voting, public accommodations, and the criminal legal system,” said Jesselyn McCurdy, Executive Vice President at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. “This executive order seeks to halt that progress, undermine the promises Congress has made, and enable barriers to equal opportunity in our society. Ever since our nation’s landmark civil rights laws were enacted, disparate impact – the concept that this administration is trying to undermine – has been a central aspect of enforcing them. People often don’t know that they’ve faced discrimination, whether they’re trying to get a loan, go to school, or apply for a job. Disparate impact is so important because even if discrimination isn’t obvious and even if it is not intentional, discrimination is still discrimination, and disparate impact cases focus on one thing: stopping it. This latest executive order is a direct attack on civil rights laws themselves.”
The Administration’s actions will not deter us from working to bring the promises of our nation’s civil rights laws to fruition and ensuring the Constitution’s words are made real for everyone. We will continue to combat discrimination; expand housing, employment, small business, credit, health, voting, and education opportunities; and work to ensure all people can live, work, and learn in safe, vibrant, healthy communities with the resources they need to thrive.
This statement was jointly issued by the following organizations:
National Fair Housing Alliance
Asian Americans Advancing Justice
Legal Defense Fund
NAACP
National Action Network
National Urban League
The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
UnidosUS