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Dear John,
Project 2025 embodies an agenda led by the Heritage Foundation to revise, reorganize and eliminate vast portions of the statutes, rules and norms that were built over decades, and that have guided our democracy and preserved our freedoms during Republican and Democratic administrations alike. Embodied in a 900-page document entitled “Mandate for Leadership – The Conservative Promise,” and developed in collaboration with more than 100 other organizations, Project 2025 would dramatically change both.
It is important to stress that recent changes in the Project’s leadership alter neither the document’s text nor the “Mandate for Leadership” that lies behind it. The president of the Heritage Foundation has made clear that the policy work has been completed as scheduled and their efforts to build a personnel apparatus to carry out this work at all levels of government continues.
All of us, and lawyers in particular, have a role to play in discussing with others the nature of the proposed changes and how they endanger our freedom. To facilitate those discussions, Lawyers Defending American Democracy is publishing a series of “Talking Points” that highlight changes Project 2025 is intent on making and their potential effect.
Each Talking Point will quote directly from a section of the document and explain its impact on our democracy, our freedom, and the rule of law. Please share this information widely with your friends, family, and colleagues in the upcoming months.
Department of Justice – Civil Rights Division (Pages 561-562)
“Even though numerous federal laws prohibit discrimination based on notable immutable characteristics such as race and sex, the Biden Administration— through the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and other federal entities— has enshrined affirmative discrimination in all aspects of its operations under the guise of ‘equity.’ Federal agencies and their components have established so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices that have become the vehicles for this unlawful discrimination, and all departments and agencies have created ‘equity’ plans to carry out these invidious schemes. To reverse this trend, the next conservative Administration should :
...
Reorganize and refocus the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to serve as the vanguard for this return to lawfulness. The Attorney General and other DOJ political leadership should provide the resources and moral support needed for these efforts. The Civil Rights Division should spend its first year under the next Administration using the full force of federal prosecutorial resources to investigate and prosecute all state and local governments, institutions of higher education, corporations, and any other private employers who are engaged in discrimination in violation of constitutional and legal requirements.”
Why it Matters: Talking Points
From beginning to end, Project 2025 reflects deep seated hostility to any aspect of diversity, equity and inclusion. This section is an extreme example of this hostility. It proposes not simply to transform the Civil Rights Division, but to reverse the Division’s mission. Rather than prosecute public and private entities which discriminate against people of color and women, the Division would be compelled to utilize “the full force of federal prosecutorial resources” against employers that promote diversity in their workforce. The inevitable result will be that public and private entities will hire fewer people of color and women. The express premise is that any policy promoting diversity in the workforce necessarily constitutes “affirmative discrimination” against whites. This premise is not simply racist and untrue – it is also unconstitutional and inconsistent with established Supreme Court precedent upholding voluntary affirmative action plans adopted by employers to remedy past discrimination.
Visit our website [[link removed]] for more on our Project 2025 Talking Points Series.
T hank you for your dedication to maintaining our democracy. Please support our efforts by donating [[link removed]] to LDAD and by sending this email to your networks. As always, please also feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] [[email protected]] if you may be interested in volunteering or if you wish to share your ideas.
Lawyers Defending American Democracy
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