Morial urges National Urban League allies to shore up DEI policies and destroy Project 2025

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Shoring up policies that promote diversity, equity and inclusion and destroying a proposed conservative guidebook that seeks to dismantle long-fought-for civil rights in America are just two of the challenges National Urban League President Marc H. Morial set forth Thursday to the group’s allies.

Morial, who opened the group’s annual conference earlier this week in his hometown of New Orleans where he also served as mayor, urged attendees to take a stand and send a message to those “who are plotting, those who are conspiring, those who are working morning, noon and night to dismantle progress.”

“Not on our watch,” Morial said, amid applause from those gathered inside a packed room at the city’s Hyatt Regency hotel. “Not on our watch will we stand aside, fail to fight or be just spectators.”

“You know, when you hear someone say that’s a DEI hire, I want you to say ’Yes. They are determined, energetic and intelligent,’ ” Morial said. “We’re not going to walk back from the term. We’re going to embrace the term for what it means.”

Morial thanked the urban league’s board of directors for stepping up after “the U.S. Supreme Court struck a blow for affirmative action and the subsequent insanity and madness of the attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion.”

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