"#TruthBeTold: The Destructiveness of Trump's Equity Gag Order & What Biden Must Do Now"

Part 20 of AAPF's Under the Blacklight conversation series.

How did President Trump take a fringe ideology and put it at the center of federal policymaking? How has Trump’s mainstreaming of alt-right ideas and tactics impeded critical work being done to advance the causes of racial justice and gender equity? What must President-elect Biden do to fight back against the right’s censorship of social justice? All of these questions and more will be discussed on this week’s episode of #UnderTheBlacklight.

This episode of #UnderTheBlacklight will focus on our recently-released #TruthBeTold Report. This timely report examines the Equity Gag Order promulgated by the Trump administration that prohibits federal agencies and federal contractors from conducting diversity trainings and equity programming that touch on topics such as intersectionality, structural racism, and implicit bias.

On this episode, AAPF Executive Director Kimberlé Crenshaw will be joined by Carol Anderson, Rachel Godsil, Laura Gomez, Charles Lawrence, Janai Nelson, and Lisa Rice will discuss not only the impact of the Equity Gag Order but also explore the historical antecedents of the current white supremacist backlash, the contemporary resistance to it, and its crucial implications for our future.

You won’t want to miss it!

**** Registration for this conversation is through Eventbrite. All interested attendees will receive a link to the live-stream on the day of the event. This event will also be recorded. ****

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Guests:

Carol Anderson is Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University. Professor Anderson’s research and teaching focus on public policy; particularly the ways that domestic and international policies intersect through the issues of race, justice, and equality in the United States. Professor Anderson is the author of Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African-American Struggle for Human Rights, 1944-1955, which was awarded both the Gustavus Myers and Myrna Bernath Book Awards. In her second monograph, Bourgeois Radicals: The NAACP and the Struggle for Colonial Liberation, 1941-1960, Professor Anderson uncovered the long-hidden and important role of the nation’s most powerful civil rights organization in the fight for the liberation of peoples of color in Africa and Asia. Professor Anderson's most recent work, One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, was a finalist for the PEN/Galbraith Award in Non-fiction and a National Book Award Longlist finalist in Non-fiction. Her book White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide is a New York Times Bestseller and was a New York Times Editor's Pick for July 2016. In March 2017, it won the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.

Rachel Godsil is Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Scholar at Rutgers Law School and Co-Founder and Co-Director of Perception Institute. She collaborates with social scientists on empirical research to identify the efficacy of interventions to address implicit bias, racial anxiety, and stereotype threat. She regularly leads workshops and presentations addressing the role of bias and anxiety associated with race, ethnicity, religion, and gender, focusing on education, criminal justice, health care, and the workplace. Her teaching and research interests include civil rights, constitutional law, property, land use, environmental justice, and education. Godsil is a lead author of Perception Institute reports, including The Science of Equality in Education: The Impact of Implicit Bias, Racial Anxiety, and Stereotype Threat on Student Outcomes, The “Good Hair” Study: Explicit and Implicit Attitudes Toward Black Women’s Hair, and The Science of Equality, Volume 2: The Effects of Gender Roles, Implicit Bias, and Stereotype Threat on the Lives of Women and Girls.

Laura Gómez is Rachel F. Moran Endowed Chair at UCLA School of Law, and holds appointments in UCLA’s Sociology Department and Chicana & Chicano Studies and Central American Studies. Gómez has lectured widely and has published numerous articles, book chapters, and books. Broadly speaking, her research focuses on the intersection of law, politics, and inequality both today and in the distant past. Her books include the following: Misconceiving Mothers: Legislators, Prosecutors and the Politics of Prenatal Drug Exposure (1997); Mapping “Race”: Critical Approaches to Health Disparities Research (2013); and Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race (2007), which is widely taught in ethnic studies and history courses.

Charles Lawrence is best known for his prolific work in antidiscrimination law, equal protection, and Critical Race Theory. His most recent book, We Won't Go Back: Making the Case for Affirmative Action, was co-authored by Professor Mari Matsuda. Professor Lawrence received the University of San Francisco School of Law's Most Distinguished Professor Award; the John Bingham Hurlburt Award for Excellence in Teaching, presented by the 1990 graduating class of Stanford Law School; and the Society of American Law Teachers national teaching award. He has been awarded honorary doctorates by Haverford College, Georgetown University. In December of 2019, he also received an honorary Doctorate from Nelson Mandela University in South Africa.

Janai Nelson is Associate Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). As an organizational thought-leader at LDF, Nelson works with the President and Director-Counsel to determine and execute LDF’s strategic vision and oversee the operation of its programs, including having served as interim director of LDF’s Thurgood Marshall Institute. She is also a member of LDF’s litigation and policy teams, and was one of the lead counsel in Veasey v. Abbott (2018), a federal challenge to Texas’s voter ID law. Prior to joining LDF in June 2014, Nelson was Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship and Associate Director of the Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development at St. John’s University School of Law where she was also a full professor of law.

Lisa Rice is the President and CEO of the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA). She leads efforts by NFHA and its partners to advance fair housing principles and to preserve and broaden fair housing protections, expanding equal housing opportunities for millions of Americans. Ms. Rice played a major role in crafting sections of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act and in establishing the Office of Fair Lending within the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Prior to becoming President and CEO, she served as NFHA’s Executive Vice President and managed the organization’s resource development, public policy, communications, and enforcement divisions. Ms. Rice is a member of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights Board of Directors, Center for Responsible Lending Board of Directors, JPMorgan Chase Consumer Advisory Council, Mortgage Bankers Association’s Consumer Advisory Council, Freddie Mac Affordable Housing Advisory Council, Urban Institute’s Mortgage Servicing Collaborative, and Quicken Loans Consumer Advisory Forum.

**** Registration for this conversation is through Eventbrite. All interested attendees will receive a link to the live-stream on the day of the event. This event will also be recorded. ****