() The National Urban League has declared a “state of emergency” over civil rights policies in response to the Trump administration.
The organization released its annual “State of Black America” report on Thursday, which accused the federal government of being “increasingly determined to sacrifice its founding principles” and “threatening to impose a uniform education system and a homogenous workforce that sidelines anyone who doesn’t fit a narrow, exclusionary mold.”
Authors of the report also criticized the administration for downsizing federal agencies and programs that have enforced civil rights policies. They said there was a multiyear effort by conservative legal activists, lawmakers and media personalities to undermine those policies and create a political landscape that enables a hard-right agenda on a range of social and economic policy.
“It is not random. It is a well-funded, well-organized, well-orchestrated movement of many, many years,” Marc Morial, president of the Urban League said. “For a long time, people saw white supremacist politics and white nationalism as on the fringe of American politics. It has now become the mainstream of the American right, whose central foundation is within the Republican Party.”
The report condemned major corporations and universities for rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. In addition, the report criticized social media companies like Meta and X for changing its content moderation rules that allegedly enabled “extremists” to spread “radicalizing” views.
The Trump administration has said that such policies created by both Democratic and Republican administrations are discriminatory and unconstitutional, with White House spokesperson Harrison Fields saying civil rights groups that oppose the administration “aren’t advancing anything but hate and division, while the president is focused on uniting our country.”
