The memo cites focus areas including benefits, or advantages to groups based on protected characteristics such as in grants, hiring or promotion. Image: CHUYKO SERGEY/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffOMB has told agencies to enforce newly issued Justice Department guidance on DEI-related issues “when managing federal programs and overseeing recipients of federal funding” including educational institutions, state and local governments, and public and private employers.
Those entities, “like all other entities subject to federal anti-discrimination laws, must ensure that their programs and activities comply with federal law and do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, or other protected characteristics-no matter the program’s labels, objectives, or intentions,” says the guidance, an attachment to memo M-25-33.
“In furtherance of that requirement, this guidance identifies “Best Practices” as non-binding suggestions to help entities comply with federal anti-discrimination laws and avoid legal pitfalls; these are not mandatory requirements but rather practical recommendations to minimize the risk of violations,” it adds.
It gives examples of areas of potential focus regarding “opportunities, benefits, or advantages to individuals or groups based on protected characteristics in a way that disadvantages other qualified persons” such as in grants, hiring, promotion, training or access to facilities or resources.
That also reaches to “ostensibly neutral criteria that function as substitutes for explicit consideration of race, sex, or other protected characteristics,” it says.
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