LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined a coalition of attorneys general urging President Donald Trump to rescind an executive order that they say could be misinterpreted to prohibit implicit bias trainings for federal contractors and federal grantees.
The coalition wants a commitment from the federal government to expand trainings aimed at understanding and combating racial injustice, a news release said Monday.
“Whether this executive order intentionally means to prohibit implicit bias trainings for certain groups or not, there is at the very least a possibility for it to be interpreted as such,” Nessel said. “The order must be revised to state full support for the use of these trainings to avoid any confusion on the matter, and to continue to progress this country has made in ensuring those from diverse backgrounds and ideologies are not subjected to stereotyping or other harms in the workplace.”
Trump’s order on “Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping” decrees a federal policy “not to promote race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating in the federal workforce or in the Uniformed Services, and not to allow grant funds to be used for these purposes.”
Earlier this year, Nessel created a list of proposals for police reform in Michigan, with one of those being the improvement of police policies and trainings – including implicit bias trainings.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer also issued a directive requiring state departments and other agencies to conduct implicit bias trainings for all state employees by the end of the year, with biennial trainings going forward.
