Chicago Women In Trades Sues To Challenge Trump's Anti-DEI Executive Orders

Chicago Women in Trades filed a lawsuit this week challenging President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, alleging the orders are creating confusion and leading to “absurd results.”

The organization, which aims to diversify the construction industry and other high-wage skilled trades, said in a release that the orders threaten its ability to continue in that role.

Trump's directives target DEI efforts in the federal sector and across nonfederal public and private sector entities. A third order takes aim at protections for LGBTQIA+ individuals.

“My administration has taken action to abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense — and these are policies that were absolute nonsense — throughout the government and the private sector,” Trump said last month.

But CWIT's suit takes issue with the termination of “equity-related” federal grants and contracts which it and other nonprofits rely on to provide services to women in nontraditional occupations, it said in the release.

The lawsuit argues that the orders don't define the types of DEI activities or speech that might cause organizations to lose federal funding or contracts.

“This has caused absurd results across federal agencies — from the U.S. Air Force temporarily removing training videos about the contributions of the Tuskegee Airmen and Women Airforce Service Pilots during World War II, to OSHA’s dismantling of workplace violence prevention resources,” the organization said.

CWIT's lawsuit asks the court to declare sections of both executive orders unconstitutional and grant permanent injunctions to stop future enforcement.

“The President’s executive orders are part of a calculated effort to erode civil rights protections,” said Katy Youker, director of the Economic Justice Project at Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in the release. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not illegal, and efforts to promote them do not violate federal civil rights laws."

About 70% of CWIT’s participants identify as Black and Latina women, according to the release. Black and Latina women remain severely underrepresented in the sector due to racial- and gender-based structural barriers, increasing the importance of CWIT's work, it said. 

Jayne Vellinga, executive director of Chicago Women in Trades, said that despite the organization's work, women make up just 5% of Illinois' construction workforce. 

“This legal action defends programs that have opened doors for women in the trades for over 40 years,” she said. “The executive orders in question threaten to dismantle equity-focused initiatives with proven success records."

CWIT is not the only entity challenging the executive orders. A federal judge in Maryland last week granted a temporary injunction blocking some provisions of the orders after groups representing college diversity officers, university professors, restaurant workers and Baltimore city officials filed suit.