Dear CEO friends,
As you may already know, today is “Giving Tuesday.” The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) is the only organization in America dedicated to fighting against race-based public policy 24/7, and we are enjoying one of our busiest years yet. But before I ask for your continued support, I wanted to share with you just a few highlights of our work this past year.
- Filing amicus briefs on key court cases. CEO filed briefs in the milestone affirmative action cases now before the United States Supreme Court, Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. UNC. We have coordinated our efforts with allies and appealed to the Court in media appearances and op-eds. In conjunction with the Pacific Legal Foundation and using data from several CEO studies on affirmative action in college admissions, we argued the harms caused by race-conscious admissions provide a special justification for overturning Grutter and banning race preferences. The U.S. Supreme Court also issued two opinions in cases in which CEO filed amicus briefs. In Brnovich v. DNC, CEO argued that Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act guarantees that voters must be given an equal opportunity to vote regardless of their race or ethnicity, but it does not require a particular racial outcome in voting. The Court’s 6-3 majority made precisely the point CEO argued in our brief. We also filed briefs on a case that overturned California’s forced donor disclosure requirement, and joined a PLF brief urging the Supreme Court to take two voting rights cases.
- Studies on use of race and ethnicity. CEO has released several studies in 2021-22, including “What Should Matter in College Admissions: A Comparison of White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian Opinion,” “Pervasive Preferences 2.0,” and “Campus Diversity and Student Discontent: The Costs of Race and Ethnic Preferences in College Admissions.”
- CEO Civil Rights Fellowship. CEO launched a first-of-it-kind fellowship this year, hosting a dozen law students from some of the top law schools in the country for a week of activities and training in Washington, D.C. They received instruction at a series of seminars with many of the best legal and policy minds in America, media training to prepare a new generation to speak out on our colorblind principles, and visits to some of our closest allies at the Heritage Foundation, the Federalist Society, and the New Civil Liberties Alliance.
- Critical Race Theory. CEO senior fellow Althea Nagai wrote a report explaining the dangers of CRT that was widely distributed, titled: “On the Theory and Practice of Equality: A Critical Race Theory Backgrounder.” CEO has joined the fierce resistance to CRT’s tenet of race conscious equity of outcome by debating the topic on podcasts, panels, and live campus events, writing op-eds, and regularly sounding the alarm in media outlets as new manifestations of this pernicious ideology emerge.
- Title IX regulations. CEO has been a leader in the fight to promote due process for students accused of sexual misconduct, and our staff recently addressed a rally on this issue in front of the Department of Education. We have contacted schools in every federal judicial circuit to provide guidance and best practices schools should implement to align with judicial decisions affirming due process elements of the 2020 U.S. Department of Education Title IX regulation. These best practices relate to procedural due process, impartiality and bias, burdens of proof, standards of evidence, live hearings, and final reports. The Biden Administration has since issued proposed amendments to the Title IX regulations, and CEO provided extensive comments. Our role as watchdog is vital to ensure schools develop procedures that both protect survivors of sexual misconduct and provide vital due process protections.
- Media appearances. CEO has had opinion pieces published in, among many others: The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Washington Times, Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Minding the Campus, Engage, Persuasion, the NAS website, SCOTUSblog, National Review Online, The Daily Signal, Newsweek, The Bulwark, and Real Clear Politics. CEO staff can frequently be seen on PBS, CNN, MSNBC, as well as on international television in Latin America and Europe, and have been interviewed by NPR, BBC, and several local radio stations. CEO staff is also quoted frequently in print news stories in major newspapers whenever the issue of race, ethnicity, or preferences appears. Most recently, both Mr. Westhill and Ms. Chavez did more than a dozen interviews on the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases in major media outlets including NBC, Newsmax, Congressional Quarterly, The Harvard Crimson, and The Hill, among others.
- Public speaking events. CEO staff have spoken at dozens of university campuses, National Association of Scholars, the Congressional Black Caucus’s Issues Forum, the American Bar Association, the National Republican Lawyers Association, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, the Federalist Society’s annual National Lawyers Convention, the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation’s Legal Strategy Forum, Intelligence Squared, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ national conference. In the last year alone, we have participated in numerous events including those sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, the Manhattan Institute, the University of Southern California, the Jack Miller Center, the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, the Hauenstein Center, the Federalist Society, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, and the Heritage Foundation.
- Coordinating our efforts with other organizations. Mr. Westhill coordinates our efforts with the Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation, Pacific Legal Foundation, and other organizations on a regular basis. Ms. Chavez chairs the Federalist Society’s Regulatory Transparency Project Working Group on Race and Sex, and CEO board member Roger Clegg is a member as is CEO senior fellow Stuart Taylor. CEO has also been active with the Title IX Council. CEO has joined several other prominent organizations in signing onto a project of the Philanthropy Roundtable to promote “True Diversity.” Unlike the left’s definition of diversity—which means preferences for some on the basis of skin color—the principles CEO has endorsed include valuing each individual and seeking diverse perspectives. CEO also joined the Heritage Foundation 2025 Presidential Transition Project. Modeled after the “Mandate for Leadership” delivered to the Reagan Administration in 1980 that led to the revolution that followed, CEO is contributing to the efforts to craft thoughtful, conservative civil rights policy.
- Revamped CEO website and digital presence. You can now read more about our recent and upcoming activities, view all our studies, amicus briefs, and op-eds, subscribe to our newsletter, and show your support by visiting our newly revamped and modernized website at www.ceousa.org.
The Center for Equal Opportunity is the nation’s only conservative civil rights organization doing this kind of work.
And we are asking for your help again today on “Giving Tuesday.” Our work over the years would have been impossible without the generous support of people like you. Can you make a donation today of $50, $100, $200, or even $1000?
CEO also recently launched our Office of Planned Giving, where you can make a gift to the Center for Equal Opportunity as part of your legacy. Unlike cash donations, planned gifts are typically made from assets in your estate, rather than disposable income. To learn more, please go to our new Office of Planned Giving page on our website.
Any donation right now will help us continue our work in monitoring, exposing, and challenging the use of racial and ethnic preferences and other race-based decision-making by the Biden administration, politically correct universities, and their allies. There is, unfortunately, no shortage of institutions that would divide Americans by skin color and national origin—but there is a shortage of organizations like CEO who oppose them.
I truly appreciate all you’ve done for us in the past, and I hope you will continue your generosity this year. I hope to hear from you again soon.
Sincerely,
Linda Chavez
Chairman and Founder
