New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration on Wednesday, challenging an executive order that New Jersey and several other states consider vague and unlawful.
The suit, which features attorneys general from 19 other states, targets Trump’s Executive Order No. 14398, which seeks to bar “diversity, equity, and inclusion” efforts from federal contractors. The executive order demands that federal agencies enter into contracts that ban such policies.
“Once again, the Trump Administration is making it more difficult to do business with the State and to efficiently deliver government services,” Davenport said. “If left unchecked, this latest demand will result in the squandering of limited state resources and drive up costs, all in service of the Administration’s ideological war on diversity.”
The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in Maryland.
The Attorney General’s Office said the federal government expects the order to affect as many as 640,000 contracts and subcontracts nationwide, some of which are held by states.
“[The] Executive Order, as federal agencies have implemented it, impedes the States’ efforts because the prescribed contract term is unclear and does not provide sufficient explanation of what it prohibits,” the lawsuit states. “The definition of ‘racially discriminatory DEI activities’ echoes existing prohibitions of discrimination based on race or ethnicity, but neither the Executive Order nor agency actions implementing it have provided any useful explanation of whether or how the contract term imposes requirements different from existing provisions of law.”
The states are asking a federal judge to strike down the executive order.
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April 23, 2020 -
