The Fresno Economic Opportunities Commission postponed scrubbing DEI-related language from job descriptions, which interim CEO Brian Angus is recommending so as not to jeopardize tens of millions of dollars in federal funding for the anti-poverty community action agency.

Delaying the vote to next month’s meeting will give the agency time to prepare examples for commissioners to review before making their decision, he said at Monday night’s meeting.

Steven Taylor, who represents the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People on the commission, noted that Trump’s rejection of DEI is an apparent backsliding from affirmative action goals on the part of the federal government. Doing so, he said, feels like “your foot is on our necks,” a phrase used to protest slavery.

Angus said removing diversity, equity, and inclusion-related language from job descriptions would put the Fresno EOC in compliance with the Jan. 20 order signed by President Donald Trump.

Removing specific DEI references will not change the Fresno EOC’s commitment to fair hiring practices or to its longstanding goal of helping people out of poverty, Agnus  told the commission.

The Fresno EOC, one of the nation’s oldest Community Action Agencies, has more than 30 programs that include Head Start. The private, nonprofit agency was created during President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty. The goal of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 was to obtain equality of opportunity in education, employment, health, and living conditions for every American.

Fresno EOC was one of 900 Community Action Agencies created through the act and was founded in 1965. The agency serves more than 100,000 Fresno County residents annually and employs more than 1,100 people.

Angus said the agency’s job descriptions already seek to hire employees “reflective of the people we serve, you have to interpret that as DEI. It’s not a direct DEI statement. The point is, either way we’re going to do the same hire.”

Loss of Funding Feared

He warned that community action actions such as Fresno EOC will be targeted because the Trump administration is in the process of going “website to website.”

And, Angus said, “they will be looking at Head Start.” The amount of federally funded expenditures in Fresno EOC’s Head Start program totaled $34.3 million as of December.

He said a recent segment by Rachel Maddow on President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty in support of community action agencies like the Fresno EOC will focus more, and not necessarily welcome, attention.

“We are not one of the programs that’s going to fly under the radar,” Angus said.

Trump’s order has been challenged in court, partly on the basis of its vagueness. The commission’s attorney, Ken Price, said a federal judge soon will consider whether to extend the temporary restraining order into a permanent injunction.

Several commissioners said they were prepared to undo the agency’s DEI language rather than risk the loss of funding that benefits many underserved members of the Fresno area.

Commissioner Kathleen Arambula-Reyna said she shares the concerns about removing DEI from hiring guidelines. “As a professor of political science, however, I would much rather remove DEI than remove the funding that is helping our community,” she said. “If we have to pretend to be a shoe, happy to be a shoe.”

Commission Chairman Oliver Baines said that if the recommendation had been put to a vote Monday night, he would have voted against it, adding “it’s a disgusting time … this is a disgusting discussion that we even have to have on that.”