Iowa’s second-largest city is pausing its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program, following a recent presidential executive order threatening to withhold federal funds from recipients that continue to run D-E-I programs.
Cedar Rapids uses more than $306-million in federal grants for services like transportation, law enforcement, and flood control.
Anthony Arrington is a board member of the local chapter of the nonprofit group Advocates for Social Justice.
“We are losing the opportunity to create synergies and a sense of belonging in our community that we said matter to us. Whatever investments they had in this department are gone,” Arrington says, “and so that money, that resource and that time can’t be expended.”
Arrington questions whether the city really supported the program’s goals.
“Do you care about black and brown and biracial and LGBTQ and low-income and the poor and disabled and military veterans? Do you care about them like you say, or does the money matter?” he says. “And what money, because you haven’t lost anything yet. So, what are you afraid of?”
Arrington wishes the city had expressed more opposition to the executive orders. He says the city pausing the program for fear of losing federal funding was premature.
(By James Kelley, Iowa Public Radio)