City Hall cut references to ‘DEI’ from NYC racial equity plan

The New York City Law Department insisted that all references to DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) be scrubbed from the city’s much-anticipated racial equity plan out of concern it could open up the city to legal challenges from the Trump administration, City & State has learned.

Internal documents obtained by City & State reveal that earlier drafts of the 375-page “New York City Preliminary Racial Equity Plan” included explicit references to DEI and the city’s goals of hiring more people of color, which the city Law Department flagged as risky due to President Donald Trump’s ongoing crusade against “woke” DEI policies.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani released the preliminary plan at a press conference Monday morning. But in the months leading up to that, over the course of more than a half-dozen revisions, all mentions of DEI were removed from the report and other language was softened. 

“Law initially recommended defining ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ principles given the term was used in the plan,” reads an internal comment on an earlier draft of the plan. “It was then removed from definitions after use of ‘DEI’ was fully scrubbed from all parts of the plan during round six of review. Only ‘equity and inclusion’ was kept in parts of the plan with Law agreeing to very limited use.”

As a result, entire sections relating to city agencies’ DEI-related goals and strategies were stripped out of the version of the plan released to the public. For instance, NYCHA’s plan to “hire a dedicated DEI trainer to develop DEI trainings and lead trainings at central office locations and at developments” was removed from the public version of the plan.

The Law Department also softened language related to preferences for Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprises in city contracting. In some cases, the changes were extremely minor; the Law Department changed one of the plan’s Racial Equity North Stars from “Minority-owned business enterprises are no longer underutilized in city contracting” to “Minority-owned businesses are not underutilized in city contracting.”

In other cases, they were significant, as the Law Department rewrote agency goals that called for expanding the use of M/WBEs. The Department of Education originally set a goal to “progressively expand opportunities for M/WBEs with a particular focus on the disparities with certified Black-owned and Hispanic-owned firms.” The Law Department replaced that with a restatement of the department’s current goal and a note that the city would comply with federal law: the DOE “has had a 30% goal for M/WBE utilization and will continue to implement and evaluate goals going forward to ensure they are consistent with federal, state, and local law.”

Many of the Law Department’s proposed changes seem designed to avoid potential federal employment discrimination lawsuits brought by the Trump administration. For instance, the Law Department objected when a city agency listed one of its goals as having a workforce that reflected the population it serves. “The legal issue is that a goal of having a workforce that reflects the population could sound like we are aiming to match the racial demographics in the city,” the Law Department wrote in an internal comment on the draft plan. “This is not an allowable goal and can be successfully challenged under Title VII and the equal protections clause.” The goal was ultimately changed to “an equitable recruitment plan and unconscious-bias free hiring process.”

This is not an unreasonable concern. Following the release of the city’s preliminary racial equity plan on Monday, U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon wrote on social media: “Sounds fishy/illegal! Will review.” The top Justice Department official later reposted the MAGA-aligned account Libs of TikTok’s message suggesting Mamdani would “FAFO,” which stands for “fuck around and find out.”

But other changes to the racial equity plan seemingly had little to do with potential employment discrimination. For instance, earlier drafts of the document described the 2020 protests following the police killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville as “protests against systemic racism.” The Law Department changed that line to “protests against excessive force.”

City agencies pushed back on many of the Law Department’s aggressive edits and were sometimes able to convince the office led by the city’s corporation counsel Steven Banks to reject proposed changes. At one point, the Law Department recommended deleting the following section about NYC Health + Hospitals’ resources for trans, gender non-conforming and non-binary patients: “We have also developed various resources including ‘Transgender and Non-Binary Patient and Resident Room Assignment Guidance’, ‘Trans Guide to Care’, ‘LBGTQ+ Affirming Clinic Toolkit’, and the ‘Pronoun Guide’. Finally, we successfully advocated for the inclusion of transgender inclusive health benefits information in NYC Employee Benefits Summary Plan—implemented in the fall of 2017.” After objections to the recommended changes, the corporation counsel weighed in: “Counsel defers to Law, but has no objection to the language coming back in.” In the end, that language made it into the plan.

Linda Tigani, the chair and executive director of the city’s Commission on Racial Equity, said she was still reviewing the plan but was concerned about City & State’s findings that language related to DEI had been removed. “Removal of any explicit references to DEI or race in the preliminary plan is very concerning and not in compliance with what the law requires which is to acknowledge and combat systemic harm and racism in NYC,” she said in an email.

New York City approved a series of ballot proposals in 2022 that amended the city charter to require the mayor to work with city agencies to release a racial equity plan every two years. The ballot proposals also created the Commission on Racial Equity, which is charged with responding to and evaluating the racial equity plans.

Although the first such racial equity plan was due in January 2024, former Mayor Eric Adams never released it, leading the Commission on Racial Equity to file a lawsuit against the mayor’s office last year. Although Mamdani has now released a preliminary racial equity plan, that lawsuit continues.

The city plans to gather public feedback on the plan for 30 days and then incorporate that feedback into a final Citywide Racial Equity Plan next month. 

“The Preliminary Racial Equity Plan focuses on addressing structural inequities that have disproportionately impacted various communities, including communities of color, across the five boroughs,” said Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for City Hall. “It is by necessity a racial equity plan, given the undeniable historical and ongoing correlation between race and economic privilege in our city, and we will not shy away from that. The preliminary plan is the start of this process, not the end, and we look forward to strengthening the plan through the feedback of New Yorkers. The final plan will reflect public feedback and will be the plan this administration carries forward through implementation.”

It’s unclear whether the public feedback process will be able to solve the central tension at the heart of the racial equity plan, though – which is that the New York City charter requires the city to implement policies with a view toward rectifying racial inequities, while the Trump administration treats any such attempts as legally suspect.

One city employee familiar with the changes that the Law Department recommended to the document was harshly critical of the compromises the Mamdani administration made.

“This isn’t the ‘new era’ we signed up for,” said the employee, who was granted anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. “Our neighbors are being taken off the streets, and the administration can’t even say DEI in a racial equity plan. This administration should be leading the way, not preemptively cowering in fear of Donald Trump or others pushing his hateful fascist agenda.”