Bill would require diversity, equity, and inclusion offices in all state agencies
As the Trump administration takes aim at diversity initiatives in both the public and private sectors, a New Jersey lawmaker wants to require all state agencies and departments to have a diversity, equity, and inclusion office.
Under new legislation, each office would be led by a chief DEI officer who would oversee programs that promote cross-cultural education and employee engagement. Bill sponsor Assemblyman Reginald Atkins (D-Union) said as one of the most diverse states in the country, New Jersey should have a government reflective of its people.
'This bill is important because it makes sure every state department and agency is thinking about equity and inclusion in a real way, not just talking about it. It gives structure to something we say we value: making sure all communities are treated fairly and represented,' Atkins told the New Jersey Monitor.
The measure would also require the office to keep track of relevant data and find ways to improve agencies 'with the goal of facilitating a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace.'
The legislation stresses that no data would be used for civil immigration enforcement.
His bill comes amid a national trend of rolling back DEI programs. A wave of corporations revoked their DEI policies after President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders in his first week in office terminating all DEI offices in the federal government and cutting contracts with companies that provide DEI training, among other things.
New Jersey said last week it wouldn't follow the Trump administration's demand to certify that Garden State schools have no 'DEI practices in violation of federal law.' The federal Department of Education has said it would withhold funding from states that don't comply with Trump's order to jettison all DEI initiatives.
Atkins didn't comment directly on Trump's move to end diversity programs. His bill, which has a Senate companion bill sponsored by Sen. Angela McKnight (D-Hudson), has not yet been scheduled for a committee hearing.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
12 minutes ago
ABC News Live Prime: August 21, 2025
Menendez brothers plead for parole; Hurricane Erin batters East Coast; appeals court throws out Trump fraud case; Trump vows to end mail-in ballots. August 21, 2025
USA Today
12 minutes ago
- USA Today
Trump declares victory in Washington DC after takeover of metro police
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump declared victory in the nation's capital, 10 days after announcing the federal takeover of the Washington metro police force to 'rescue' the city from crime. Trump on Aug. 21 met with law enforcement officers who had been deployed to patrol the city he recently described as rampant with 'crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor.' The president arrived at the United States Park Police facility in Anacostia Park Thursday evening and offered words of encouragement to law enforcement officers. He brought hamburgers and pizzas for the crowd. 'The numbers are down like we wouldn't believe, but we believe it,' he told the crowd. Among those who attended were officers from the National Guard, FBI, U.S. Marshals and the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department. 'We've had some incredible results. The results have come out and it's like a different place. It's like a different city." "To me, I feel very safe now," he added. On Aug. 11, Trump deployed 800 National Guard troops in Washington DC, declaring a public safety emergency. Several Republican states including Ohio, Mississippi, West Virginia and Louisiana have sent guardsmen to the capital to support the Trump Administration's efforts. The troops are deployed at tourist-heavy locations such as the National Mall and transit hubs such as Union Station and Metro stops to aid local law enforcement. Since the deployment of the troops, carjackings have decreased by 83%, robberies by 46%, car thefts by 21%, and overall violent crime by 22% compared to the previous seven days, according to Metropolitan Police Department's police union. But crime had already been on the decline. Violent crime in Washington, DC, dropped 26% through Aug. 8, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department. However, the city had the fourth-highest homicide rate among U.S. cities, after St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit, at 27.3 per 100,000 residents in 2024. 'It's the capital. It's going to be the best in the world,' Trump said. 'We're going back to Congress for some money, and we're going to redo a lot of the pavement, a lot of the medians…the graffiti's all coming off real fast,' he said. He then pivoted to his latest passion project: building a 90,000 square foot ballroom in the White House. 'They've been after a ballroom for 150 years, but they never had a real estate guy,' he said. 'As a president, I've done a lot of ballrooms and we're going to make this one the best of them all.' Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal
Chicago Tribune
12 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Appeals court throws out massive civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump
NEW YORK — A New York appeals court on Thursday threw out President Donald Trump's massive financial penalty while narrowly upholding a judge's finding that he engaged in fraud by exaggerating his wealth for decades. The ruling spares Trump from a potential half-billion-dollar fine but bans him and his two eldest sons from serving in corporate leadership for a few years. Trump claimed 'TOTAL VICTORY' in the case, which stemmed from a civil lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. 'They stole $550 million from me with a fake case and it was overturned,' Trump said, echoing his earlier social media post as he addressed police in Washington, D.C. 'They said this was a fake case. It was a terrible thing.' James, a Democrat, focused on the parts of the decision that went her way, saying in a statement that it 'affirmed the well-supported finding of the trial court: Donald Trump, his company, and two of his children are liable for fraud.' The ruling came seven months after Trump returned to the White House, his political fortunes unimpeded by the civil fraud judgment, a criminal conviction and other legal blows. A sharply divided panel of five judges in the state's mid-level Appellate Division couldn't agree on many issues raised in Trump's appeal, but a majority said the monetary penalty was 'excessive.' A lower-court judge, Arthur Engoron, had ordered Trump last year to pay $355 million in penalties after finding that he flagrantly padded financial statements provided to lenders and insurers. With interest, the sum has topped $515 million. Additional penalties for executives at his company, the Trump Organization, including sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr., have brought the total to $527 million with interest. 'While harm certainly occurred, it was not the cataclysmic harm that can justify a nearly half billion-dollar award' to the state, Judges Dianne Renwick and Peter Moulton wrote in one of three opinions shaping the appeals court's ruling. They called the penalty 'an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.' Both were appointed by Democratic governors. Engoron's other punishments, upheld by the appeals court, have been on pause during Trump's appeal, and the president was able to hold off collection of the money by posting a $175 million bond. Donald Trump Jr. celebrated the decision by mocking James, who had periodically posted a running tally of the fraud penalty, with interest. Over a post from James in February 2024, when the tally was nearly $465 million, Trump Jr. wrote: 'I believe you mean $0.00. Thank you for your attention to this matter.' The five-judge panel, which split on the merits of the lawsuit and Engoron's fraud finding, dismissed the monetary penalty in its entirety while also leaving a pathway for an appeal to the state's highest court, the Court of Appeals. In the meantime, Trump and his co-defendants, the judges wrote, can seek to extend the pause to prevent any punishments from taking effect. While the Appellate Division dispatches most appeals in a few pages in a matter of weeks, the judges weighing Trump's case took nearly 11 months to rule after oral arguments last fall and issued 323 pages of concurring and dissenting opinions with no majority. Rather, some judges endorsed parts of their colleagues' findings while denouncing others, enabling the court to rule. Two judges wrote that they felt James' lawsuit was justifiable and that she had proven her case but the penalty was too severe. One wrote that James exceeded her legal authority in bringing the suit, saying that if any lenders felt cheated, they could have sued Trump themselves, and none did. Another wrote that Engoron erred by ruling before the trial that James had proven Trump engaged in fraud. In his portion of the ruling, Judge David Friedman, appointed by a Republican governor, was scathing in his criticism of James for bringing the lawsuit. 'Plainly, her ultimate goal was not 'market hygiene' … but political hygiene, ending with the derailment of President Trump's political career and the destruction of his real estate business,' Friedman wrote. 'The voters have obviously rendered a verdict on his political career. This bench today unanimously derails the effort to destroy his business.' Trump and his co-defendants denied wrongdoing. At the conclusion of the civil trial in January 2024, Trump said he was 'an innocent man' and the case was a 'fraud on me.' The Republican has repeatedly maintained the case and the verdict were political moves by James and Engoron, both Democrats. Trump's Justice Department has subpoenaed James for records related to the lawsuit, among other documents, as part of an investigation into whether she violated the president's civil rights. James' personal attorney Abbe D. Lowell has said investigating the fraud case is 'the most blatant and desperate example of this administration carrying out the president's political retribution campaign.' Trump and his lawyers said his financial statements weren't deceptive, since they came with disclaimers noting they weren't audited. The defense also noted bankers and insurers independently evaluated the numbers, and the loans were repaid. Despite such discrepancies as tripling the size of his Trump Tower penthouse, he said the financial statements were, if anything, lowball estimates of his fortune. During an appellate court hearing last September, Trump's lawyers argued that many of the case's allegations were too old and that James had misused a consumer protection law to sue Trump over private business transactions that were satisfactory to those involved. State attorneys said that while Trump insists no one was harmed by the financial statements, his exaggerations led lenders to make riskier loans and that honest borrowers lose out when others game their net worth numbers. The civil fraud case was just one of several legal obstacles for Trump as he campaigned, won and segued to a second term as president. On Jan. 10, he was sentenced in his criminal hush money case to what's known as an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction on the books but sparing him jail, probation, a fine or other punishment. He is appealing the conviction. And in December, a federal appeals court upheld a jury's finding that Trump sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s and later defamed her, affirming a $5 million judgment against him. The appeals court declined in June to reconsider. Trump still can try to get the Supreme Court to hear his appeal. Trump also is appealing a subsequent verdict that requires him to pay Carroll $83.3 million for additional defamation claims.
