Dear friends of CEO,
Election Day came and went this week in a number of states including ours in Virginia. It was particularly gratifying that many conservative candidates focused on the harm Critical Race Theory and other race conscious ideologies are doing in our schools. Since its inception, CEO has promoted color-blind equal opportunity and opposed race-conscious policies, and we are now in the forefront of the fight against CRT.
CEO chairman Linda Chavez has taken our message on the road the last several weeks, delivering the keynote speech at the Texas Christian Development Network in Houston, participating as a panelist for the Bully Pulpit at the University of Southern California, discussing voting rights, appearing on a podcast for the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation titled E Pluribus Unum: What Is the Right Balance Between the Two? as well as her weekly discussions on the podcast Beg to Differ every Friday with Mona Charen, available on iTunes and anywhere where podcasts can be downloaded.
Linda also continues delivering our message to a nationwide audience on cable news, just recently appearing on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper where she discussed how to fix the immigration crisis. She has appeared on several other radio and national TV programs lately, including PBS’s To the Contrary. Just last week, she published a 3,000 word essay on Real Clear Politics on threats to democracy posed by the left as well as the right. As Linda notes:
“…radical progressives are engaged in their own pernicious campaign to undermine the foundations of our democratic society, and doing so with little pushback from the Democratic Party or anti-Trump conservatives…the radical progressives and their Democratic Party allies target our culture more broadly. They would re-write history, redefine biological sex, require proportional racial outcomes in all human endeavors, and impose limits on speech that does not conform to their Orwellian vocabulary.”
The piece received widespread attention and plaudits for its fearlessness across the political spectrum. CEO is often a regular source in major stories on our issues, including this October 30th article on “The Myth of White Privilege” in the American Thinker, which cites our work on out of wedlock birthrates.
CEO president and general counsel Devon Westhill has also been busy fighting the good fight for colorblind equal opportunity, coordinating with other organizations, pitching our mission to donors, and regularly speaking to local and national media outlets on issues of race and ethnicity. He has been sounding the alarm on the ABA’s plan to mandate diversity training, recently moderated a panel for the Federalist Society on HUD and the disparate impact rule, and has been quoted in numerous news stories in recent weeks. Devon has also kept the public informed on the airwaves and is a weekly guest on the nationally syndicated Lars Larson radio program.
Devon was quoted prominently in a recent Washington Times exclusive titled “Biden officials find racism throughout government, plan ways to promote ‘equity’.” From the article:
“Mr. Biden’s vow to promote racial equity in every aspect of government set off alarms. Critics said steering billions of taxpayer dollars toward minorities might discriminate against White people. ‘There’s going to be just an avalanche of racial and ethnic preference programs to achieve equity of outcomes,’ said Devon Westhill, the president and general counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative think tank. ‘Obviously, some of this is going to be illegal.’
Mr. Westhill noted that Mr. Biden instructed agencies in June to figure out how to make sure that minority-owned small businesses get more of the billions a year in federal contracts. Mr. Biden said he wants a 50% increase in federal contracts going to minority-owned small businesses, which currently get 10% of federal business. The change would steer roughly $100 billion more to the minority-owned companies… ‘They’re going to come up with a lot of schemes,’ Mr.Westhill said.”
There will indeed be many schemes but CEO will be there every step of the way to monitor, expose, and challenge the use of racial preferences by the Biden administration, politically correct universities and institutions, and their allies on the Left. None of our efforts would be possible without your support.
As the weather gets colder and the Left gets “woker,” it’s warming to know most Americans agree with our mission to keep this country free from the Left’s cultural agenda. This week proved that.
Thanks again for all your support and stay safe.
Rudy Gersten
Executive Director
Center for Equal Opportunity
