Giving Voice to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Principles

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mrs. GRIJALVA. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Jackson and the Congressional Progressive Caucus for bringing attention to this important issue during this Special Order hour.

We are all here to call out the quiet, calculated campaign sweeping across our Federal agencies.

Under the banner of defeating wokeness, the Trump administration is dismantling the structures that protect civil rights, equal opportunity, and equal protection under the law.

This is not a theoretical debate over acronyms. It is about the resources, protections, and dignity of everyday families.

In southern Arizona--from Tucson to Nogales, Yuma, Avondale, Tolleson, Douglas, and our border and travel communities--the impact is deeply personal.

Let us take a look at what is being dismantled.

They are stripping economic lifelines from rural communities. The Department of Agriculture canceled a $300 million program to help minority and marginalized farmers buy land. For Arizona's small-scale, Tribal, and Latino farmers, this isn't about ending favoritism. It is about crushing the dream of land ownership.

They are silencing families by cutting language access. In Arizona's Seventh Congressional District, bilingualism and multilingualism are our strengths. When language access is rolled back, grandmothers struggle to understand their doctors, and parents struggle to access basic Federal services.

They are compromising our local healthcare security. In border and rural communities where healthcare deserts are a reality, rolling back health equity initiatives means leaving mothers, children, and our most vulnerable neighbors behind.

They are blinding our civil rights watchdogs. After 60 years of progress, our Federal civil rights agency is moving to end demographic data collection. For six decades, that data has helped us identify where discrimination exists. We cannot address what we refuse to see.

They are politicizing our military and threatening free media. They are replacing merit with ideological litmus tests in Pete Hegseth's military. They are weaponizing independent watchdogs, with the FCC ordering a review of ABC's broadcast licenses over its diversity and inclusion policies.

Mr. Speaker, these attacks are not isolated. They are interconnected.

When this administration rolls back protections for people with disabilities, strips LGBTQ+ protections, or targets women's medical research, it is not simply streamlining government. It is unravelling the public infrastructure of our democracy, because diversity, equity, and inclusion are not buzz words. They are guarantees.

They guarantee that a child with a learning disability in Tucson gets a fair and just education. They ensure that a small business owner in Yuma gets an honest shot at a Federal contract, and they uphold a basic promise: every American deserves an equal opportunity to succeed.

We in southern Arizona know how to stand our ground. We will not sit in silence while 60 years of civil rights progress are erased by an executive decree.

I urge my colleagues and the American people to see this campaign for what it is: a systemic dismantling of our civil rights.

We must stand united. We must organize, and we must fight to defend equal opportunity for every community in this Nation.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source