Ayanna Pressley introduces bill to restore Biden-era DEI orders, calls for ‘Third Reconstruction’

EXCLUSIVE: Pressley’s “Equity In Government Act” takes on President Donald Trump’s “wholesale attack” on diversity, equity, and inclusion and civil rights.

As President Donald Trump‘s executive grip on DEI puts both the public and private sectors in a tight chokehold, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., on Wednesday introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would restore what advocates say are major setbacks to closing social and economic gaps for Black and other marginalized communities.

“Their rollbacks have been swift and deep over the last six months, and all marginalized people are feeling the impacts,” Pressley told theGrio. She described the Trump administration’s anti-DEI agenda as “anti-Blackness on steroids.”

Pressley’s “Equity In Government Act” would restore policies former President Joe Biden established by executive order to expand equity efforts across the federal government.

Executive Orders 13985 and 14091 mandated that federal agencies embed equity in their everyday business, including tailoring services to ensure that they reach and improve the lives of Black and Brown, women, LGBTQ+, and disabled communities. The Biden administration’s DEI framework invested billions in programs and grants designed to expand access to housing, education, entrepreneurship, health care, voting, and reduce exposure to environmental harms and community violence.

Biden described his equity orders as a “whole-of-government response” to the systemic harms caused by policy discrimination and bias.

“There were gains being made,” said Pressley, who was joined by colleagues, including U.S. Rep. Jonathan Jackson, D-Ill., chair of the Congressional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Caucus, during a press conference championing the Equity in Government Act.

Despite the historic federal action to address systemic racism and bias, Trump, on his first day in office, rescinded Biden’s equity orders and banned all DEI-related programs and policies, which are being challenged in several lawsuits. He’s also pressured private industries, including universities and Fortune 500 companies, to follow suit.

Trump has dismissed the idea of equity, calling DEI “illegal discrimination,” or rather what his administration sees as discrimination against cisgender, straight white men. Instead, he ordered the government to “restore” so-called meritocracy in the implementation of federal services.

“It’s really just about defining a narrow vision of what it means to be American. It’s a vision of really emboldening white supremacy and white nationalism, and now they’re actively working to just undo centuries of progress for Black folks, Brown folks, women, LGBTQ, disabled folks,” said Pressley. “Efforts to defund and dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion are resegregation full stop, and it’s a wholesale attack on civil rights.

The congresswoman’s bill, backed by advocacy groups like National Action Network, National Urban League and National Black Justice Collective, would return the federal government to the Biden-era equity framework; requiring agencies to submit strategic plans and implement data-backed services. The legislation would also establish an Equity Subcommittee on the existing Performance Improvement Council and an Agency Equity Advisory Team within each federal agency.

While the Equity in Government is almost certain to be blocked by the Republican majority in the House, Pressley tells theGrio the bill is also about giving marginalized communities and coalition groups a legislative tool to fight back against Trump’s MAGA takeover.

“People need organizing prompts, and this legislation also provides that because that’s necessary for the movement to remain fortified, emboldened, to keep momentum up,” she said.

Pressley said the bill is also an opportunity to educate people on what DEI is, which she argues has been distorted. She explained, “Like all things that go wrong, where there are targeted harms, Black people may feel it more, but many people will feel it because…diversity means everybody. Equity means fair access to opportunity. And inclusion is a pathway to upward mobility, or what some characterize it as the American Dream.”

The Massachusetts congresswoman said she sees the fight for equity as an opportunity for the country to undergo a “Third Reconstruction,” referencing an era similar to the end of U.S. slavery and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

“It is not only about the codifying of EO provisions from the Biden administration…all of those things have to be built upon and expanded,” said Pressley. Referring to how the COVID-19 pandemic exposed racial disparities in health care, employment, and housing, she added, “We can’t just default to an unjust status quo, because just like the pandemic, there are things being revealed in this moment.”

Pressley lamented that “gains are not guarantees,” as evidenced by Trump’s actions and decisions handed down by the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court—including the reversal on race-based affirmative action, which the Trump administration has used as a justification for its DEI rollbacks.

“These things do not exist in perpetuity,” she said. “We have to fight like hell to preserve the gains that have been made, and then we have to fight like hell to expand them.”