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The Hill
13-02-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
‘DEI Watch list' sparks racism charges; Advocates see that as validation
President Trump and Elon Musk have brought a 'move fast and break things' style to Washington that is inspiring aggressive outside advocacy campaigns and giving new significance behind past right-wing efforts. A 'DEI WATCH LIST' is one example of how conservatives are still finding ways to pile on with the shocking and attention-grabbing tactics that fuel the Trump moves. The recently-released list, announced with Trump's signature all-caps text, set off a flurry of concern, fear and criticism — which Tom Jones, who leads the American Accountability Foundation that compiled the list, saw as a validation of the work. 'If you're not taking flak, you're not over the target,' Jones told me in an interview. 'If the New York Times hasn't called me a racist, I'm probably not doing my job.' The list named dozens of federal workers who are not only explicitly focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, but that Jones alleges are 'aggressive activists in the DEI space' in other ways. The list dug into the individuals' past jobs, op-eds, social media posts, campaign donations and more. Democrats and other outsiders decried the project as a scare tactic intended to intimidate public employees, expressing concern that it listed mostly Black workers. The head of the American Public Health Association, Dr. Georges Benjamin, called the project racist. Concerns swirled about safety and physical threats against those on the list, NBC News reported. 'It's all bull—-. Like, they literally have no examples of anyone being threatened,' Jones said, adding that he has gotten death threats in his own email in wake of the watch list going live. I asked Jones about how he would feel if the list does inspire some kind of threat against these individuals. He wouldn't entertain the notion. 'It's just a red herring. It's not a worthy hypothetical to discuss.' Trump signed an executive order to terminate DEI in the federal workforce. But Jones is hoping to see that order implemented even more broadly, such as taking action against senior leaders who might have some DEI ties but not have it in their job title. 'This isn't filling potholes. It's not a position where your ideology doesn't matter. It's a position where your ideology is essential and at the core of what you do. And that's why these people can't be in these positions,' Jones said. The goal? 'Reassign them, furlough them, administrative leave, all of those things, fire them. All those things seem to make a lot of sense to me,' Jones said. The pushback isn't slowing the American Accountability Foundation down. The group said it would add even more names to the DEI Watch List. And it's not the first watch list tactic from the group either, which published a 'DHS Bureaucrat Watch List' last year. The American Accountability Foundation has strong ties to the Conservative Partnership Institute, a conservative training and advocacy nonprofit which has been an incubator of Trump-aligned outside groups such as the Center for Renewing America. RELATED: PBS closes its DEI office to comply with Trump executive order WHAT'S PAST IS PROLOGUE — Actions once seen as ill-fated red meat displays for conservatives that even got some pushback from Republicans are now more like instruction manuals in the Trump Administration. And they now get little if any GOP pushback. Just take a look at a number of amendments from members of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus in the last Congress. That vote came just before the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel — which several UNRWA staffers were accused of being involved in and fired over, resulting in the Biden administration and Congress later halting funds to UNRWA. But at the time, the vote was following Trump cutting off UNRWA during his first administration. Trump also signed an executive order to yank UNRWA earlier this month. I asked Perry about why we aren't hearing more grumbling from Republicans about actions from Musk and others given prior opposition. 'I think the difference is that Elon, unlike the rest of us, has this huge platform by which he communicates to the American people on a mass scale,' Perry told me. 'These are things that individual Republicans, time after time, whether it's USAID or UNRWA or anything like that, have been shouting from the rooftops, ringing the alarm bell. Our bandwidth, our ability to communicate that to the mass volume of American people is very limited.' Those failed amendments are just one of the ways prior advocacy campaigns and efforts are fueling and previewing Trump administration actions. Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) annual 'Festivus' report of government waste is another example of GOP-compiled wastebooks that are not acting like messaging playbooks. Last year's Festivus report, for instance, criticized a USAID-funded 'Ahlan Simsim' Sesame Street show in Iraq – a tidbit that Trump officials repeatedly brought up when praising the Trump administration's dismantling of the agency. Paul said in a statement that he has shared with DOGE 'egregious examples of government spending that I have spent the last ten years gathering, including over $1 trillion of waste highlighted in my most recent Festivus Report.' DEMS DODGE DOGE — The House DOGE Caucus is quickly shedding the initial Democratic interest that it had in wake of the flurry of Musk'sDOGE activities in the executive branch — posing a problem for the GOP leaders who had high hopes of finding bipartisan consensus in the group. One of three Democrats who joined the DOGE Caucus, Rep. Val Hoyle (D-Ore.), announced last week night that she would leave the group, saying it was impossible to work in good faith on the project while Musk was 'burning down the government—and the law—to line his own pockets and rip off Americans across the country who depend on government services to live with dignity.' She's not the only one reconsidering affiliation with the caucus as resistance to Musk's DOGE becomes a major rallying cry for the Democratic Party. 'I thought the purpose of the caucus was to make government more efficient and decrease the cost to the taxpayers. But it seems that Elon Musk doesn't need Congress. He's doing it all himself,' Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.), one of the other two Democrats to join, told me. 'So, I want to hear my colleagues tell me why we need the caucus.' That's not good news for the House DOGE caucus — not to be confused with the Senate DOGE Caucus led by Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) or House Oversight DOGE Subcommittee chaired by Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). The group was hoping to attract even more Democrats and have one member from each party to lead eight working groups on various different policy areas. But Musk and DOGE have since become a major source of outrage and a symbol of everything they dislike about the Trump administration, giving Democrats no incentive to add credibility to DOGE efforts. The Musk DOGE moves are also repelling those who expressed some initial interest in DOGE, like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who considered joining the group to talk about defense spending cuts but opted against it. He told me that after the last few weeks, his decision 'was the right one.' Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Ga.), a DOGE Caucus Co-chair, said that the group had just topped 100 members, and he is staying optimistic about the prospects for bipartisanship in the group, inviting Hoyle to come back into the fold. 'I still have a personal goal to create that safe harbor where we can debate and we can add more Democratic members,' Bean told me, inviting Democrats to come to the group's meetings without officially joining the caucus. 'We need everybody's input.' Bean said the next DOGE Caucus meeting will happen some time this month. RELATED: First DOGE committee hearing becomes referendum on Elon Musk I'm Emily Brooks, House leadership reporter at The Hill, expanding to cover the wider right-wing ecosystem, influences, and debates in Washington, D.C. Send me observations and tips: ebrooks@
The Guardian
09-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Revealed: how a shadowy group of far-right donors is funding federal employee watchlists
A rightwing non-profit group that has published a 'DEI Watch List' identifying federal employees allegedly 'driving radical Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives' is bankrolled by wealthy family foundations and rightwing groups whose origins are often cloaked in a web of financial arrangements that obscure the original donors. One recent list created by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) includes the names of mostly Black people with roles in government health alleged to have some ties to diversity initiatives. Another targets education department employees, and another calls out the 'most subversive immigration bureaucrats'. The lists come amid turmoil in the US government as Donald Trump's incoming administration, aided by Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has sought to fire huge swathes of the federal government and purge it of DEI and other initiatives – such as tackling climate change – that Trump has dubbed 'woke'. While the publication of the personal details of government workers – whom the website describes as 'targets' – has reportedly 'terrified' many in federal departments, the Guardian has discovered that some current and former employees of AAF have taken pains to conceal their affiliations with the group on LinkedIn and other public websites. One of the donors to the AAF is the Heritage Foundation, the architects of Project 2025, which has been a driving ideological force behind Trump's re-election and first weeks in government. Heidi Beirich, chief strategy officer of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE), said: 'It's not surprising to find a vile project such as this backed by Project 2025 entities and far-right donors who have it out for public employees.' Disclosure documents show that the AAF has been closely involved in training Republican staffers in collaboration with the affiliated Conservative Partnership Institute, in sessions that promise to train rightwing operatives in skills including 'open source research' and 'working with outside groups'. Significant sums come to AAF via 'dark money' donor-advised funds, which obscure the original benefactors by design. In the most recent filings for large donor-advised funds, AAF received $25,000 via the Goldman Sachs Charitable Fund; $16,750 via the National Christian Charitable Fund; and $22,300 via the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund. But other donors are named private foundations, some of which also donated to affiliated organizations including the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI). In 2022, for example, the Dunn Foundation gifted $250,000 to CPI and $25,000 to AAF. In 2023, the same foundation gave AAF another $25,000 and upped its CPI donation to $2.5m. In 2023, the WL Amos Sr Foundation handed $10,000 to AAF, $55,000 to CPI-affiliated American Moment, and $300,000 to CPI, along with another $200,000 to Project 2025's architects at the Heritage Foundation. The Guardian emailed Foundation Source, whose employees act as trustees for the Dunn Foundation, according to filings, and William Amos III, who is listed as president of the WL Amos Sr Foundation, to ask about their donations and whether they approved of AAF's style of political advocacy. The Guardian also emailed others listed as officers or trustees of other family foundations that have made substantial donations to AAF, including Tina Kimbrough, executive director of the Nord Family Foundation; and Hallie McFetridge, a trustee of the Quinn Family Foundation. Only Quinn's McFetridge responded, saying: 'As we are a family foundation, different members of the family are able to make gifts as their conscious dictates. Another member of our family made this particular donation.' She added that she would pass the Guardian's questions on to that person but that 'I can assure you I would find this absolutely intolerable. I strongly disagree with this approach to political advocacy.' Other heavyweight conservative groups have pitched in for AAF. AAF was one of two organizations to receive direct grants in 2023 from the Club for Growth Foundation, one of a family of non-profits and political committees that channels money to conservative causes and candidates from billionaire megadonors Jeff Yass, Richard Uihlein and their affiliates. According to tax filings, in 2023 AAF also received $50,000 from The 85 Fund, which is one among a network of organizations funded by Leonard Leo, the conservative megadonor and Federalist Society mastermind. Although 2024 filings for AAF are not yet available, last June the organization reportedly also received $100,000 from Heritage for a project whose 'goal is to post 100 names of government workers to a website this summer to show a potential new administration who might be standing in the way of a second-term Trump agenda'. The most crucial support for AAF, however, has come from the organization that birthed it: the CPI, which continues to have a profound influence on the Trump administration and the Republican party as a whole via its own activities and those of its flotilla of spin-off groups. AAF was founded in 2021 to 'take a big handful of sand and throw it in the gears of the Biden administration', as Tom Jones, the organization's head, told Fox News at the time. In 2021 and 2022, however, CPI's filings indicate that it was the 'directly controlling entity' for the 'related tax-exempt organization' AAF, and that CPI funded AAF to the tune of $335,100 in 2021 and $210,000 in 2022. This was the period in which a well-heeled CPI was incubating a 'network of closely affiliated think tanks, legal groups, and training centers dedicated to the thorough makeover of the federal government', according to the Nation. That network included America First Legal (AFL), the Center for Renewing America (CRA), the Electoral Integrity Project (EIP) and American Moment, along with AAF. All of these groups were on the advisory board for Project 2025, and most have placed personnel at the highest levels of the new Trump administration. AFL's Stephen Miller is Trump's deputy chief of staff for policy; CRA's Russell Vought is poised to be confirmed as head of the office of management and budget; and in a little-reported move, Trump placed American Moment's founder, Saurabh Sharma, as special assistant in the presidential personnel office. The Guardian reported last year that CPI had been cementing ties between the far right and the GOP by means of training events for Hill staffers and their bosses in Congress Many of these events were held at 'Camp Rydin', a sprawling 2,200-acre (890-hectare) property on Maryland's eastern shore purchased after a $25m donation was made to CPI by its namesake, retired Houston software entrepreneur Mike Rydin, in the wake of January 6. Others were held at one of at least nine adjacent properties on Washington DC's Pennsylvania Avenue purchased by CPI since 2022, in what reports described as a $41m 'shopping spree' that has created a 'Maga campus'. CPI literature describes the precinct as 'Patriot's Row'. Records obtained from US Senate and House ethics disclosures indicate that AAF has benefited from being front and center at many of these events. At a 29 May 2024 'Legislative Assistant Symposium' attended by staffers then working for senators including Josh Hawley, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and JD Vance, AAF's Jones was billed as speaking on 'strategies for how Congress should approach oversight and accountability', alongside speakers from CPI, AFL, Advancing American Freedom and anti-immigrant group NumbersUSA. A parallel event with the same line-up drew staffers for hard-right Maga representatives including Anna Paulina Luna – who recently introduced a bill that would see Trump's face added to Mount Rushmore – and Paul Gosar, who in November invoked antisemitic conspiracy theories in a newsletter defending Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's pick to lead national intelligence. NumbersUSA was part of a network of groups 'founded and funded' by John Tanton, whom the Southern Poverty Law Center called the 'puppeteer of the nativism movement and a man with deep racist roots'. At an event held 15-17 February 2023, hosted by AAF and attended by staffers for Congress members including Luna, Ken Buck and Marjorie Taylor-Greene, trainees were to learn skills including 'how to effectively draft requests for information from agencies and witnesses', 'tools and techniques for conducting open source research into agencies, individuals, and organizations', and conducting 'mock interviews with reluctant / recalcitrant witnesses'. Prior to AAF, Jones worked as a Capitol Hill staffer for a string of high-profile hard-right Republicans including Ron Johnson, Ted Cruz and the former senator Jim DeMint, who headed up CPI after he was forced out in an internal power struggle at Heritage. Since opening his AAF unit, he has blooded a new generation of rightwing opposition researchers. Some of those researchers appear reluctant to publicly advertise their affiliation. On LinkedIn, four people openly flag their affiliation with AAF: Jones himself; communications manager Yitz Friedman of Brooklyn, New York; development adviser Nadeen Wincapaw of Tampa, Florida; and associate researcher Elisabeth Guinard of Helena, Montana. Search engine-cached versions of the LinkedIn page of Jerome Trankle of Washington DC, however, indicate that he is research director at AAF. Data brokers also yield an AAF-associated email address for Tankle. Trankle's live LinkedIn profile has him doing 'ESG & Financial Services' research at 'AAF' without using the badged – and searchable – link some of his colleagues use. The Guardian emailed the address associated with Trankle at AAF to ask why he doesn't more clearly advertise his affiliation but received no response. Additionally, an anti-fascist research group claimed late Wednesday to have identified additional researchers on the basis of LinkedIn profile pictures that had inadvertently been included in purposed evidentiary materials about government workers on the DEI Watch List site. The Guardian corroborated the inclusion of researchers' profile pictures in evidence on the DEI watchlist. One of those identified, Cari Fike, is married to Hugh Fike, a senior director at CPI, and is a former lobbyist for Heritage Action, the 501(c)4 associated with the Heritage Foundation. The Guardian contacted Fike for comment on her apparent involvement in researching government workers for AAF. Beirich, the extremism expert, said: 'It's rather ironic that an organization that is targeting public officials through a watchlist that could open them up to harassment and mistreatment goes to such lengths to protect its own', adding: 'Clearly, they understand how dangerous this outing can be.' The dirt machine now targeted at government workers was honed on higher-profile targets during the Biden administration. Early on, AAF pointed its opposition-research machine at Biden nominees including Saule Omarova, nominated for comptroller of the currency; Sarah Bloom Raskin, nominated for vice-chair for supervision of the Federal Reserve Board, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, supreme court justice, whom the organization falsely claimed had been soft on sex offenders. In the process of 'desperately seeking dirt' on the Federal Reserve nominee Lisa Cook, AAF used a customary tactic of peppering her employer, Michigan State University, with records requests. But Jones went one step further by bombarding 'dozens' of her colleagues in a bid to cast doubt on her tenure promotion a decade earlier. A significant proportion of the nominees targeted by AAF – including Brown Jackson, Cook and Omarova – were women of color. The dozens of public employees whose information was collected in 'dossiers' on the DEI watchlist site are overwhelmingly people of color. Of 44 profiles listed under agencies at the time of reporting, 29 were people of color, and 20 were women of color alone. Just five were white men. 'The fact that many on the list are people of color just adds another layer of vileness to the project,' Beirich said. 'Recent attacks by the Trump administration on public employees shows that the Maga/Project 2025 movement will go as far as possible to make life miserable for public servants.'
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
'DEI' Watch List Website Identifies Workers Involved With Diversity Initiatives And Most Are Black
As President Trump continues to demonize diversity, equity and inclusion, a website called 'DEI Watch List' has followed his lead and published the public information in an attempt to call out Black workers. It is uncertain when the website was founded, but it describes the people listed as 'targets.' The employees mostly listed are ones who work within the Department of Health and Human Services. According to NBC News, some of their 'offenses' include working on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, using pronouns in their bios, screenshots of social media posts and donating money to Democrats. A government worker told the outlet that their name was on the website after a former co-worker sent them the link on social media. 'It's unnerving,' the unidentified person said. 'My name and my picture is there, and in 2025, it's very simple to Google and look up someone's home address and all kinds of things that potentially put me at risk.' 'I don't know what the intention of the list is for,' they continued. 'It's just kind of a scary place to be.' On Tuesday (Feb. 4), the site shared photos of employees and their information under the headline 'Targets' but it was later changed to 'Dossiers.' The bottom of the website states that it is 'A project of the American Accountability Foundation,' which is a conservative watchdog group. Last month, the Trump administration demanded for federal employees in DEI positions to be placed on paid. Black federal employees also received emails that threatened consequences if they did not report on co-workers who work in diversity, equity and inclusion positions that may have gone undetected by the federal government. They were also instructed to the Office of Personnel Management if they are 'aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies.' For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Federal health workers terrified after ‘DEI' website publishes list of ‘targets'
Federal health workers are expressing fear and alarm after a website called 'DEI Watch List' published the photos, names and public information of a number of workers across health agencies, describing them as 'targets.' It's unclear when the website, which lists mostly Black employees who work in agencies primarily within the Department of Health and Human Services, first appeared. 'Offenses' for the workers listed on the website include working on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, donating to Democrats and using pronouns in their bios. The website, a government worker said, is being circulated among multiple private group chats of federal health workers across agencies, as well as through social media links. The site also reached Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, who learned about it Tuesday evening when a federal health worker sent it to him. 'This is a scare tactic to try to intimidate people who are trying to do their work and do it admirably,' Benjamin said. 'It's clear racism.' A government worker said they found out theirs was among the names on the website Tuesday afternoon after a former co-worker sent them the link on social media. 'It's unnerving,' said the person, who requested anonymity because of safety concerns. 'My name and my picture is there, and in 2025, it's very simple to Google and look up someone's home address and all kinds of things that potentially put me at risk.' 'I don't know what the intention of the list is for,' the person said. 'It's just kind of a scary place to be.' The site lists workers' salaries along with what it describes as 'DEI offenses,' including political donations, screenshots of social media posts, snippets from websites describing their work, or being a part of a DEI initiative that has been scrubbed from a federal website. Benjamin suggested the acts of online harassment are criminal. 'Law enforcement should look into them.' A person who isn't on the list but works at a federal health agency called the website 'psychological warfare.' The link, this person said, is being circulated in their private group chat of federal health workers, causing some to 'freak out.' It's hard to gauge, the worker said, whether it's a legitimate threat. 'I don't know anything about the organization doing this or their parent association. People are just paranoid right now.' A note at the bottom of the website says, 'A project of the American Accountability Foundation.' That group is a conservative watchdog group. It's not the first time the group has created a list of 'DEI targets.' In December, it sent Pete Hegseth, then the nominee for defense secretary, a list of names of people in the military whom it deemed too focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, the New York Post reported at the time. Neither the American Accountability Foundation nor HHS immediately responded to requests for comment. The website comes after a bruising two weeks for public health workers. Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they have received 'threatening' memos from the Department of Health and Human Services directing them to terminate any activities, jobs and research with any connection to diversity, equity and inclusion — and turn in co-workers who don't adhere to the orders. HHS oversees federal health agencies, including the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. 'The tone is aggressive. It's threatening consequences if we are not obedient. It's asking us to report co-workers who aren't complying,' said a CDC physician who wasn't authorized to speak to reporters. 'There's a lot of fear and panic.' NBC News reviewed one of the memos, which directed employees to 'review all agency position descriptions and send a notification to all employees whose position description involves inculcating or promoting gender ideology that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately.' The result, staffers said, is paranoia. 'I know of people who have been put on administrative leave for perceived infractions related to these ambiguous memos. People are thinking if I put one foot wrong, I'm just going to be fired,' another CDC physician said. In one case, a potluck luncheon among co-workers was hastily canceled for fear it would be seen as a way to promote cultural diversity. Despite the harassment, public health employees said they remain committed to their work. 'If I leave, who's going to replace me?' a CDC physician said. 'If nobody replaces me and enough of us leave, then who's going to be doing the public health work?' This article was originally published on
NBC News
05-02-2025
- Health
- NBC News
Federal health workers terrified after ‘DEI' website publishes list of ‘targets'
Federal health workers are expressing fear and alarm after a website called 'DEI Watch List' published the photos, names and public information of a number of workers across health agencies, describing them as 'targets.' It's unclear when the website, which lists mostly Black employees who work in agencies primarily within the Department of Health and Human Services, first appeared. 'Offenses' for the workers listed on the website include working on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, donating to Democrats and using pronouns in their bios. The website, a government worker said, is being circulated among multiple private group chats of federal health workers across agencies, as well as through social media links. The site also reached Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, who learned about it Tuesday evening when a federal health worker sent it to him. 'This is a scare tactic to try to intimidate people who are trying to do their work and do it admirably,' Benjamin said. 'It's clear racism.' A government worker said they found out theirs was among the names on the website Tuesday afternoon after a former co-worker sent them the link on social media. 'It's unnerving,' said the person, who requested anonymity because of safety concerns. 'My name and my picture is there, and in 2025, it's very simple to Google and look up someone's home address and all kinds of things that potentially put me at risk.' 'I don't know what the intention of the list is for,' the person said. 'It's just kind of a scary place to be.' The site lists workers' salaries along with what it describes as 'DEI offenses,' including political donations, screenshots of social media posts, snippets from websites describing their work, or being a part of a DEI initiative that has been scrubbed from a federal website. Benjamin suggested the acts of online harassment are criminal. 'Law enforcement should look into them.' A person who isn't on the list but works at a federal health agency called the website 'psychological warfare.' The link, this person said, is being circulated in their private group chat of federal health workers, causing some to 'freak out.' It's hard to gauge, the worker said, whether it's a legitimate threat. 'I don't know anything about the organization doing this or their parent association. People are just paranoid right now.' A note at the bottom of the website says, 'A project of the American Accountability Foundation.' That group is a conservative watchdog group. It's not the first time the group has created a list of 'DEI targets.' In December, it sent Pete Hegseth, then the nominee for defense secretary, a list of names of people in the military whom it deemed too focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, the New York Post reported at the time. Neither the American Accountability Foundation nor HHS immediately responded to requests for comment. The website comes after a bruising two weeks for public health workers. Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they have received 'threatening' memos from the Department of Health and Human Services directing them to terminate any activities, jobs and research with any connection to diversity, equity and inclusion — and turn in co-workers who don't adhere to the orders. HHS oversees federal health agencies, including the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. 'The tone is aggressive. It's threatening consequences if we are not obedient. It's asking us to report co-workers who aren't complying,' said a CDC physician who wasn't authorized to speak to reporters. 'There's a lot of fear and panic.' NBC News reviewed one of the memos, which directed employees to 'review all agency position descriptions and send a notification to all employees whose position description involves inculcating or promoting gender ideology that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately.' The result, staffers said, is paranoia. 'I know of people who have been put on administrative leave for perceived infractions related to these ambiguous memos. People are thinking if I put one foot wrong, I'm just going to be fired,' another CDC physician said. In one case, a potluck luncheon among co-workers was hastily canceled for fear it would be seen as a way to promote cultural diversity. Despite the harassment, public health employees said they remain committed to their work. 'If I leave, who's going to replace me?' a CDC physician said. 'If nobody replaces me and enough of us leave, then who's going to be doing the public health work?'
