Fort Worth City Council members will vote June 24 on a resolution to suspend the city’s diversity and inclusion department.
If adopted, the resolution would also dissolve the city’s business equity ordinance and suspend economic incentives for minority- and women-owned businesses — a move city staff said is necessary to comply with President Donald Trump’s orders to shut down diversity, equity and inclusion-related initiatives. The president has threatened to cut off federal assistance to local governments that do not comply.
Assistant City Manager Dana Burghdoff, who oversees the city’s diversity and inclusion department, told council members during a June 17 presentation that the city is not required to fully disband the department. Her presentation included a recommendation to “suspend the duties of the diversity and inclusion department that are prescribed in city code addressing racial, ethnic and gender disparities.”
Fort Worth would lose $277.1 million in federal funding if it doesn’t comply with federal orders surrounding DEI, Burghdoff said Tuesday. Burghdoff did not return a request for comment from the Fort Worth Report.
Sana Syed, the city’s interim chief communications officer, declined to comment on the resolution until the council’s vote next week.
The diversity and inclusion department is one of 10 city departments to receive federal funding, in addition to the aviation, development services, environmental services, fire and emergency management, library, neighborhood services, park and recreation, police, and transportation and public works departments. The diversity department receives more than $4.9 million from 14 federal funding awards, according to Burghdoff’s presentation.
Fort Worth funds 120 staff positions through about $40.1 million in annual federal awards, with $526,802 used to fund five staff members in the diversity and inclusion department.
City Manager Jay Chapa said he does not expect any city employees to lose their jobs if his office’s recommendations are followed. Christina Brooks, chief equity officer and director of the diversity and inclusion department, did not return a request for comment.
The council resolution instructs Chapa to allocate the responsibilities for civil rights enforcement and other remaining functions of the diversity and inclusion department that are compliant with federal law to appropriate city departments. Federal requirements will not impact Fort Worth’s Human Relations Ordinance, Americans with Disabilities Act accommodations, the Civil Rights Act, or Fair Housing and Fair Employment ordinances.
Staff would “administratively revise” any other DEI-related programs to be compliant with federal law, Burghdoff told council members.
Fort Worth’s diversity and inclusion department manages the city’s business equity programs and civil rights enforcement. It also oversees three council-appointed advisory bodies — the Human Relations Commission, the Mayor’s Committee on Persons with Disabilities and the Business Equity Advisory Board — as well as an employee diversity and inclusion committee. It is unclear what impact the department’s suspension would have on those commissions.
City leadership created the diversity and inclusion department at the recommendation of the 2018 race and culture task force, which was formed in response to public outcry over the Fort Worth Police Department’s treatment of Jacqueline Craig, a Black woman who was forced into handcuffs after calling 911 to report that her 7-year-old son had been assaulted. The incident prompted a reckoning over local law enforcement’s use of excessive force and bias toward communities of color.
The task force, led by 25 community leaders, produced 85 pages of recommendations to reduce or eliminate racial and cultural disparities.
Estrus Tucker, co-founder of DEI Consultants LLC who served on the race and culture task force, said he feels a vote to adopt the resolution could ultimately dismantle years of trust built between the city and its communities of color. He believes most of Fort Worth’s progress is due to intentional relationship building, and he’s concerned those efforts will dissolve with the diversity and inclusion department.
“It makes me feel like what I love most about my hometown is at risk of being destroyed, or worse, hollowed out with empty rhetoric and hollow symbolism, and that hits really personal,” Tucker, a lifelong Fort Worth resident, said.
The diversity and inclusion department works to promote “community-wide values of inclusion and access” to the city’s municipal services, according to its website as of June 19. It does so by following trends and recommendations identified by the race and culture task force.
The Report contacted all 11 City Council members for their thoughts on the resolution and whether they plan to vote in support of its adoption. Elizabeth Beck declined to comment, and seven did not return calls.
Chris Nettles, who represents parts of southeast Fort Worth including the Historic Southside, told the Report he plans to vote against the resolution, and he’s hopeful that his colleagues will do the same.
He said that if the council adopts the resolution, their vote would be a “slap in the face” to Fort Worth’s Black and brown communities, particularly minority workers who depend on contract jobs and the city’s incentive programs. He worries that adopting the resolution would be an act of ceding local authority to the federal government.
“It’s going to set a precedent that we’re just going to listen to the federal government and let them run our cities when we believe in local control, where the people that you elect, such as your state rep and your City Council and your (county) commissioners, they know best for the people that live in the community that they live in, versus the people who live in Washington and don’t understand the economic disadvantages that we deal with in Fort Worth,” Nettles said.
Council member Mia Hall, who was sworn in to represent southwest Fort Worth and the Como neighborhood this week, said in a written statement that she and her colleagues must be “vigilant and thoughtful” in their vote on the resolution. She said she’s engaged with city staff and community stakeholders to ensure the outcome “reflects our commitment to fairness and opportunity for all” but did not return a request for comment on whether she intends to support the resolution.
“Our goal must be clear: to uplift all businesses and communities in our city — not just a select few,” Hall said. “Every neighborhood, every entrepreneur, every voice should have access to the same resources and opportunities.”
On June 17, Chapa told council members his office would work with the Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce, the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and the Fort Worth Chamber to develop a program that doesn’t leave small businesses of any background behind.
Council member Charlie Lauersdorf, who represents parts of north Fort Worth and declined to comment on the resolution, said June 17 that potential changes surrounding DEI efforts provide an opportunity to educate local businesses on Historically Underutilized Business, or HUB, certifications, which are not impacted by the new federal requirements. The certifications are given to businesses owned by historically disadvantaged populations, including women and racial minorities.
Council members will vote on the resolution during their meeting at 10 a.m. June 24 at City Hall. The meeting agenda is available here.
Government accountability reporter Drew Shaw contributed reporting.
Cecilia Lenzen is a government accountability reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
Editor’s note: This article was updated at 4 p.m. June 19 to include responses from Charlie Lauersdorf and Sana Syed.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.