Among the first actions President Donald Trump took upon assuming office in 2025 was a series of executive orders and memoranda targeting what his administration claimed was the “illegal” practice of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEI, or DEIA)—not just across the federal government but within the private sector, including or especially the nonprofit sector.
But executive orders and presidential memoranda are not laws—and DEI remains a legal practice. And while some organizations have walked back or self-censored at least language around practices aimed at increasing inclusion, many others—including nonprofits whose very missions incorporate DEI—have stood up for their values. Some now face realized and potential attacks from the Trump administration, its allies in Congress, and a myriad of state laws going after nonprofits practicing DEI and other equity measures.
Recently, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced new funding to help nonprofits advancing health equity in the United States not just defend against attacks from the White House and Congress, but also to challenge these punitive policies in court. (NPQ has received funding from RWJF.)
Executive orders and presidential memoranda are not laws.
“Part of it is to provide [those nonprofits] timely legal analysis and education so that they can navigate the current environment as best as possible,” explained Giridhar Mallya, senior policy director at RWJF. “The second part is supporting groups that are actually challenging policies that we’re seeing, both from the federal government and state government.”
“Doing both those things simultaneously is really important because one is about navigating the current environment as it is, and the other is about trying to shape and shift the environment in a way that’s more positive for health and racial equity work,” Mallya told NPQ.
“[RWJF is] supporting groups that are actually challenging policies.”
Among RWJF’s grantees working on the legal front are Democracy Forward, which has been a leader in challenging the Trump administration in court; the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. At the same time, RWJF is also supporting organizations, like ChangeLab Solutions, that advocate for equity in health-related laws and policies.
(Related NPQ content: Meeting “Flood the Zone” with “Rule-of-Law Shock and Awe”)
Health Funding Slashed
Just weeks after assuming office, the Trump administration moved to cut nearly $2 billion in federal funding, impacting tens of thousands of grants administered by the National Institutes of Health for everything from cancer research to clinical trials for breakthrough medicines. Programs seemed to have been targeted through a word search for mentions related to DEI, including concepts like “equity” and “disparity.”
“This was work to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes, to improve maternal health,” noted Mallya, “and it’s just had a cascading effect on being able to identify effective solutions to address these problems that affect all populations, but then particularly affect racial and ethnic minorities.”
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Mallya says cutting funding to such work will have negative consequences for a wide swath of Americans.
“This was work to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes, to improve maternal health.”
“The way most racial equity work happens in the health space is that it’s designed in a way to reduce disparities, but it’s made available broadly so that all patients can benefit,” said Mallya. “It kind of counters that zero-sum thinking that equity work is really only about benefiting certain groups. I think what we’ve seen is that the best-designed equity interventions actually improve health for people of all races.”
Nonprofits on the Front Lines
One result of the Trump administration’s crusade against its hazy conception of DEI is that many thousands of organizations whose work happens to include any of hundreds of individual descriptors effectively banned by the Trump administration now face a landscape of confusion, uncertainty, and threat.
“Organizations are being asked to certify that they don’t engage in ‘illegal DEI’ without knowing the definition,” Mallya said. “When the federal government uses the power of its purse that way, it really creates a chilling effect on any work that’s related to reducing health disparities, for example. Even if it’s on very, very strong legal footing, the executive order is written in such a vague and broad way that it has really constrained the ability of public health groups, healthcare organizations, people who work in housing to do work to reduce disparities.”
Standing Up for Equity
Despite the crippling vagueness of the Trump administration’s effective ban on DEI work for federal grant recipients, the law of the land has not changed when it comes to DEI and other frameworks for inclusion and equity.
By supporting organizations working for health equity and fighting the administration’s policies in the courts, RWJW’s new funding stream aims to help shift the landscape of public health work back in the direction of equity—for all people in the United States.
That work includes funding organizations sharing resources and strategies for other nonprofits, public health departments, and other entities dedicated to health justice.
Those grant recipients, Mallya said, are “putting out guidance, hosting webinars, interacting with organizations from across the country to help them understand, what do these executive orders mean for your health and racial equity work? What are the legal limits on this work? What are the ways in which you can continue it?”
Some of that guidance on practicing health equity work under the Trump administration is publicly available from RWJF grantees NAACP Legal Defense Fund and ChangeLab Solutions.
