Biden revokes Trump order banning some diversity training

NEW YORK — Civil rights groups on Thursday celebrated President Joe Biden’s swift revocation of a Trump administration order that had banned federal agencies, contractors and recipients of federal funding from conducting certain diversity training. Camilla Taylor, director of constitutional litigation at Lambda Legal, said Biden’s decision ensures that organizations “don’t have to look over their shoulders constantly to wonder if someone is going to report them and if it will lead to them losing their federal funding.” She said several of Lambda Legal’s clients are already taking steps to resume training that had been suspended because of the order. The Trump administration had said the order prohibited training that implies anyone is racist or sexist “by virtue of his or her race, sex, and/or national origin.” Civil rights groups said the wording was overly broad and had a chilling effect on workplaces trying to address concepts like white privilege, systemic racism and unconscious bias. Adams said SAGE developed its training years ago educate health care providers “on the need to work respectfully with LGBT older people.” The Trump administration’s order “was highly convoluted and there was no way to comply with their guidelines while undertaking anti-racism and anti-sexism training.” “We think it’s clear that both the impact and in fact the intent of the presidential order was to silence and eliminate anti-racism training,” Adams said.