The administration of Donald Trump is reviewing a racial equity plan released by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, with a senior official at the U.S. Department of Justice raising concerns about the proposal.
An assistant attorney general in the department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement that the DOJ could pursue enforcement action if warranted in response to the plan, which was unveiled Monday, the New York Post reported.
The proposal, described as a “preliminary citywide racial equity plan,” calls for involvement from multiple city agencies to “solve decades of neglect and discrimination” allegedly against black, Hispanic, and Latino residents. Measures outlined in the plan include “anti-racism” training initiatives and efforts to address pay equity among city employees.
“The Black Lives Matter movement has galvanized a new generation of activists, who continue to demand not only the end of police violence, but also the dismantling of all forms of systemic racism that pervade every aspect of life in New York City,” it states.
“This has all led us to the creation of this moment, right here, right now, to operationalize racial equity into every aspect of City life,” it adds.
Assistant AG Harmeet Dhillon claimed Tuesday the plan “appears to be another example of divisive, race-based policymaking that the United States Supreme Court has routinely held to be unlawful.”
She added: “Racist and illegal DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] has no place in our society. The Civil Rights Division is reviewing the plan and will bring enforcement actions if necessary.”
The report was required by a voter referendum in 2022 and was released by City Hall concurrently with a separate study on the “True Cost of Living” in New York City.
The preliminary racial equity plan involved 45 agencies and over 200 city employees, aiming to “build a more equitable, inclusive, and just city.” This initiative was launched in response to the intense protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota in 2020, as explained by Afua Atta-Mensah, Chief Equity Officer of Mamdani, on Monday.
Mamdani had pledged to make the plan public within his first 100 days in office. This commitment follows the delays by his predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams, who repeatedly postponed the report’s release and even faced a lawsuit for not meeting the 2024 deadline.
The report and recommendations come as the Trump administration targets diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in liberal areas like New York, The Post reported.
The document explicitly avoids using the terms for DEI but states, per The Post:
- Increasing the number of city teachers who “receive professional learning in implicit bias and culturally relevant pedagogy.”
- Calls for a public school curriculum that reflects “the diversity of the families and communities.”
- Demanding “anti-racism training for City government staff” to help workers “combat racial discrimination in the workplace.”
- Requiring the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to “ensure racial equity is considered in evaluating 100 percent of new proposals” for construction projects.
The plan also falsely claims, “New York’s history has been one of colonization, exploitation, and racial oppression.” That led Dhillon to post on X: “Sounds fishy/illegal. Will review!”
Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) said she was awaiting the DOJ’s review results. “The mayor made it clear that he was going to go after white communities during his campaign, and this seems like his first step toward making that goal a reality,” she told The Post.
During his campaign, Mamdani promised to shift the property tax burden from outer borough homeowners to “more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods.”
Councilman David Carr (R-Staten Island) said the report is a senseless waste of time and money.
“We didn’t need to waste more than three years and spend who knows how much taxpayer dollars on a useless report to ‘discover’ why black families, or any other families, are fleeing New York,” he said in a statement.
He noted further: “It’s because of the same disastrous Democratic policies the mayor wants to double down on, which have made this city so unaffordable.”
