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Demetria McCain: I’m going to fast forward to talk about something we literally just filed yesterday [February 19, 2025], and that’s a case that—like I said, we’re representing nonprofits—that’s a case called the National Urban League, National Fair Housing Alliance, and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago v. Trump….We, along with Lambda Legal, filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of nonprofit advocacy organizations….So this was on behalf of advocacy organizations challenging three of the anti-equity executive orders from President Trump that related to diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and transgender people. And so we claim that those orders will severely, severely limit the organizations’ ability to provide critical, social, and health services such as HIV treatment, fair housing, equal employment opportunities, affordable credit, civil rights protections, and many other services. This actually would harm countless…people across the US, including people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, people living with HIV.

So the lawsuit that we filed on behalf of these organizations claims that the administration is actually violating the organizations’ free speech and violating due process, and it’s actually engaging in intentional discrimination by using and enforcing the anti-equity orders. And so, the three executive orders we’re challenging terminate equity-related grants and forbid federally funded entities from engaging in diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs, and forbids them from recognizing the existence of transgender people. And so, together, the orders reverse decades and decades of civil rights progress and actually pose an existential threat to the organizations that advocate for the civil rights of transgender people and provide them shelter, services, and support.

On the topic of litigation, I gotta say, since the inauguration, as folks I’m sure have read in the news, there are a lot of other organizations filing litigation. An example is the litigation that’s been filed seeking protection for federal workers who’ve been placed on administrative leave or fired. There’s been litigation…challenging DOGE [Department of Government Efficiency] and DOGE’s actions. So at the end of the day, there are going to be some new law school books written, I think, because there’s going to be new decisions that are going to come out of this four-year period of time that we’re in right now.