Greene County Democrat

Tag: President Donald Trump

  • Newswire : Trump memo asks recipients of federal funds to ban DEI programs

    By Reuters

    WASHINGTON — The U.S. Justice Department issued a memo on Wednesday that asked recipients of federal funds to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which President Donald Trump has aimed to dismantle since taking office in January.
    Trump has already issued executive orders aimed at restricting DEI but Wednesday’s memo laid out specific examples of actions that it said federal fund recipients should restrict — such as some training sessions and policies aimed at protected groups. It also said federal funds should not be used to support third parties that engage in DEI.
    Recipients of federal funds range from schools, colleges and universities to nonprofit organizations and private firms that are government contractors. The memo was released publicly by the Justice Department.
    In an example to support one of its recommendations, the memo said that “a scholarship program must not target ‘underserved geographic areas’ or ‘first-generation students’ if the criteria are chosen to increase participation by specific racial or sex-based groups.”
    It added: “Instead, use universally applicable criteria, such as academic merit or financial hardship, applied without regard to protected characteristics or demographic goals.”
    In another recommendation, it said a program targeting low-income students “must be applied uniformly without targeting areas or populations to achieve racial or sex-based outcomes.”
    Federal law already bars discrimination on grounds of race, gender and ethnicity. The Trump administration has eliminated DEI-related programs in the government and fired many people who worked in those initiatives. It has faced some legal pushback. Several private firms have rolled back such initiatives in recent months.
    DEI programs have been part of workplace diversity efforts to ensure fairer representation for groups seen as historically marginalized, such as African Americans and other ethnic minorities in the United States, LGBTQ+ community members, women, and people with disabilities.
    Civil rights advocates say DEI helps address the continued effects of historical and generational inequity and aims to remove systemic barriers for groups affected by a legacy of racism, sexism and xenophobia.
    Trump and his allies say DEI unfairly discriminates against other Americans, including white people and men, and weakens the importance of merit in job hiring or promotion. DEI practices include training on how to combat discrimination, addressing pay inequity along gender or racial lines and broadening recruitment and access for underrepresented ethnic groups.
    The Trump administration has threatened to cut federal funds given to institutions over a range of issues like pro-Palestinian protestsagainst U.S. ally Israel’s war in Gaza, climate initiatives, transgender policies and DEI programs.

  • Newswire: Vice President Kamala Harris becomes highest ranking Black woman from U.S. to make foreign trip

    Vice-President Harris arrives in Guatemala

    By Bruce C.T. Wright, NewsOne

    There is no shortage of Black history being made in the year 2021. This time around, Vice President Kamala Harris has become the highest-ranking Black woman government official in U.S. history to make a foreign trip. Guatemala literally rolled out the red carpet as the first woman and first Black vice president of the United States touched down on Sunday for her maiden trip abroad for President Joe Biden‘s administration to address the immigration crisis at America’s southern border. However, not everybody in Guatemala was happy that Harris was visiting. The trip is part of Harris’ duties as assigned by Biden to figure out how to effectively — and humanely — handle the influx of migrants seeking citizenship following the massive failure in that arena by President Donald Trump and his administration, which separated families at the border, caged the children and deported the adults. Harris met with Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei during a bilateral meeting to address the root causes of migration from Central America. The vice president was among multiple government officials from both countries to meet at the Palacio Nacional de la Cultura in Guatemala City. “The goal of the vice president’s trip is to deepen our strategic partnership and bilateral relationship with both the Guatemalan and Mexican governments to advance a comprehensive strategy to tackle the causes of migration,” Harris’ spokesperson, Symone Sanders, told CNN. While the talks got underway inside the opulent building that is the equivalent of Guatemala’s White House, protesters outside demonstrated against Harris’ presence in their country. Photos showed protesters carrying signs in English as well as Spanish that implored Harris to “mind your own business” and “go home” and saying she was “not welcome.” Back home in the U.S., Harris was the subject of false media reports centered on her new immigration role. A reporter with the conservative tabloid New York Post was forced to quit in April after writing without offering any proof that undocumented migrant minors arriving at the border were being greeted by American officials with copies of a children’s book written by the vice president. Previously, Harris hosted a virtual bilateral meeting on the same topic with Giammattei in the Vice President’s Ceremonial Office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building of the White House on April 26. Following the meeting in Guatemala, Harris was scheduled to travel to Mexico to meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to “attend roundtable discussions with entrepreneurs and labor leaders,” NBC News reported. But considering the important role that Mexico plays with immigration to the U.S. — migrants traveling through Central America typically must pass through Guatemala before getting to Mexico, from where they cross into any number of border states like Texas, Arizona and California — chances are those talks will also address America’s migrant crisis while the vice president is in Central America. The meeting in Mexico may even touch on Trump’s infamous border wall that Democrats and the Mexican government alike vehemently opposed. Prior to Harris’ trip this week, other high-ranking Black American women to travel abroad for the U.S. government include Condoleezza Rice, President George W. Bush’s Secretary of State, and Susan Rice, who served as former President Barack Obama‘s national security adviser and ambassador to the United Nations.