‘Freedom Table With Rashad Robinson’ Discusses Trump’s Attacks On DEI 

Upon taking office, President Donald Trump wasted no time signing several executive orders targeting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts in public universities and the federal government. In this month’s Freedom Table, host Rashad Robinson is joined by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s Director-Counsel Janai Nelson, Black AF History author Michael Harriot, and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum Alphonso David, to discuss how much damage Trump has done to DEI efforts in his first year alone and what can be done to fight back. 

2025 felt like the longest year ever by virtue of how much chaos and damage were caused by the Trump administration and its cronies. While there has been an understandably large focus on the damage caused by Trump’s immigration campaign, his executive orders attacking DEI have disproportionately impacted Black people. 

“In just a matter of months after Trump’s executive orders took hold, MSNBC reported that 300,000 Black women, 300,000 had been forced out of the labor workforce due to corporate DEI rollbacks, federal job cuts, and constraints placed on small businesses due to the latest tariffs,” Robinson explains in the video. 

While Trump’s executive orders targeted the federal government and publicly funded universities, the Trump administration’s willingness to file lawsuits over what it deems “illegal DEI” has had a chilling effect on the U.S. corporate world. This is compounded by FCC Chair Brendan Carr openly tying approval of corporate mergers to the removal of DEI programs. We saw this happen last year when cellular company T-Mobile announced it would end its DEI programs ahead of a proposed merger with United States Cellular and Metronet. 

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund has received questions from education and corporate leaders about how to respond to the federal government’s moves, and Nelson has given them some pretty astute advice. “You must follow the law and not the lies,” Nelson says in the video. “It is unlawful to discriminate in the workplace, it’s unlawful to discriminate in the university context, and Diversity, equity, and inclusion measures often prevent that kind of liability, prevent discrimination from happening.” 

The executive orders targeting DEI haven’t only impacted people in the workforce but have also limited who’s invited to speak on college campuses. Harriot discusses an incident that occurred last year, when he was invited to speak on a college campus after his book was chosen as the common read for the previous semester. He received a call from the university only minutes before the discussion was set to begin, telling him not to show up. Through further reporting, Harriot found that this has happened to several Black authors over the last year due to universities being afraid of violating Trump’s executive order. 

“It’s created this chilling effect where everybody is afraid to do anything Black,” Harriot states in the video. 

This week’s Freedom Table also examines the financial impact of the executive orders and the various ways we can fight back against these attacks on DEI. This is a thought-provoking discussion well worth watching. 

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