The Future of Equal Opportunity

A core shared value in American society, one deeply woven into our national narrative, is the belief in equal opportunity — the idea that everyone should have a fair chance to succeed based on their effort, talent, and ambition, regardless of their background.

Equal opportunity in the American workplace has deep roots in the nation’s struggle for civil rights and economic fairness. Though disparities remain for women, different racial groups, and others in areas such as employment rates, wages, wealth, and occupational segregation, progress has been made. From the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, to affirmative action policies and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the US has made significant strides toward leveling the playing field.

Today, the legacy and pursuit of equal opportunity face significant challenges. Recent debates and policy shifts risk weakening efforts to address discrimination and harassment, and they may obscure the history and progress we’ve made toward greater inclusion. These trends raise important questions about how we uphold our shared commitment to fairness and democratic values. At a time when trust in institutions is wavering and inequality is rising, reaffirming our commitment to equal opportunity is more urgent than ever. 

In this event, which took place on September 4, 2025, we explore the current landscape, emerging challenges, and the strategies needed to protect and strengthen opportunity in the American workplace. We hear opening remarks from Kalpana Kotagal, commissioner of the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, followed by a panel discussion with Stacey Abrams, USC’s Dr. Manuel Pastor, and moderator Natalie Foster, a senior fellow with our Future of Work Initiative and president and cofounder of the Economic Security Project.

For more information about this event, including a transcript, speaker bios, and additional resources, visit our event page.

For highlights from this discussion, subscribe to EOP’s YouTube channel.

Or subscribe to our podcast to listen on the go.

This event is part of our Opportunity in America conversation series.

Episode Transcript

(00:39):
None. Music.

(01:40):
Good afternoon and welcome. My name is Maureen Conway.
I'm a Vice President at the Aspen Institute and Executive
Director of the Economic Opportunities Program.
And it's my pleasure to welcome you to our conversation today,
the Future of Equal Opportunity.This event is part of our
Opportunity in America series inwhich we hear from experts,

(02:00):
researchers, practitioners, workers, advocates, policy
makers, and business leaders about the changing economic
landscape in the United States and how we can make sure that
the economy works for everyone, regardless of place of gender,
of race or class, or any other characteristic.
For those of us who've been, forthose of you who've been with us

(02:21):
for the last couple of minutes, you've been viewing a few pieces
of art curated for this event bymy colleague Matt Helmer.
Art responds to the society in which it's created, but it can
also reflect our past and paint a vision of what we aspire to
be. It can confront us with our
present realities and compel us to re examine our assumptions

(02:42):
about what is true. Most of the pieces that you've
been seeing come from the Equal Employment Opportunity is the
Law Portfolio, a series of prints created in 1973 by the
Smithsonian American Art Museum that addresses the theme of
Equal Employment Opportunity. The portfolio was sponsored by

(03:03):
the Equal Employment OpportunityCommission, the EEOC, to promote
awareness of workplace discrimination laws.
Another piece included is by Gwen Maxwell Williams, a quilt
called We Are Not There Yet, which is also housed at the
Smithsonian and it's from 2012. According to the Smithsonian,
Maxwell Williams designed this quilt to affirm the importance

(03:26):
of the EEOC and to observe that workplace discrimination is with
us to this day. So these pieces set the stage
for our conversation today. What is our experience of equal
opportunity and what might our future be?
We hold these truths. We hold these truths that all

(03:47):
men are created equal, that America is the land of
opportunity, that if you work hard, you can improve your
standard of living. But we also fall short of these
truths. We are a nation divided about
what equal opportunity looks like and where the challenges to
this ideal lie. We may, maybe it's just me, but

(04:12):
I feel sometimes a sense of Vertigo when confronted with
others radically different understanding of where the
inequities in our economy are and and what needs to happen to
ensure equal opportunity. Equal opportunity is an
aspiration that was undermined even as it was written into our

(04:32):
founding documents, and it remains both elusive and exalted
as the bedrock of a free and just society.
So today we have a terrific set of speakers to discuss the
timely, important, complicated, and confounding issue and to
share ideas for how we can move closer to providing equal

(04:53):
opportunity for all. But before I introduce them, of
course, we'll just do a quick review of our technology.
All attendees are muted. Please do use the Q&A button at
the bottom of your screen to submit and upload questions.
Please share your perspective, ideas, examples, resources, or
experiences related to today's topic.
We know we have a really informed audience, so we'd love

(05:15):
to hear from you. We encourage you to post on
about this conversation on your social media platform of choice.
Our hashtag is Talk Opportunity.If you have any technical issues
during this event, please message us in the chat or e-mail
us at [e-mail].
This event is being recorded andwill be shared via e-mail and

(05:38):
posted to our website. Closed captions are available
for this discussion. Please click the CC button at
the bottom of your screen to activate them.
And now it is my great pleasure to introduce our first speaker
today, Commissioner Kalpana Kotigal, who joined the EEOC in
August 2023. Before joining the Commission,

(06:02):
Commissioner Kotigal was a partner at Cohen Milstein, where
she was a member of the firm's Civil Right and Employment
Practice Group and chaired the firm's Hiring and Diversity
Committee. For nearly two decades,
Commissioner Cortigault represented marginalized groups
in employment and civil rights class action suits.
Her cases often involved cuttingedge issues related to Title 7

(06:24):
of the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Americans
with Disabilities Act and the Family and Medical Leave Act, as
well as wage and hour issues andthe non discrimination provision
of the Affordable Care Act. During this time, Kotigal
co-authored The Inclusion Writer, a voluntary agreement
between actors, film makers and studios aimed at advancing equal

(06:47):
opportunity in the film industryboth behind and in front of the
camera. The Commissioner has dedicated
her career to supporting workersand championing diversity,
equity, inclusion and accessibility, and we are just
so very grateful to have Commissioner Kotigal with us
today. Commissioner Kotigal, welcome,
and I turned it over to you. Thank you so much, Maureen for

(07:10):
that warm introduction and thanks everyone for being here
for this incredibly timely discussion.
As Maureen said, my name is Kalpana Kodigal.
I am a commissioner at the EqualEmployment Opportunity
Commission, or EEOC for short. We are the nation's premier
civil rights agency. This year marks the 60th

(07:31):
anniversary of our small agency,Which advances the unrealized
promise of equal opportunity in the workplace.
I think we can't discuss today'stopic, the future of equal
opportunity, without reflecting a little bit on the past.

(07:52):
From my perspective, history is a really critical touchstone.
It provides context for the present and for the work ahead.
It reminds us that progress isn't linear, far from it, and
that our work, our action in theface of challenges, can and will

(08:13):
make the difference. The Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which created the EEOC and whichprohibits workplace
discrimination, is a perfect case in point.
As many of you may know, the lawdidn't come into being
overnight. It took years of strategy and of
litigation, of activism and organizing to get the bill

(08:37):
passed. Following the Supreme Court's
landmark decision in Brown versus Board of Education in
1954, there was profound resistance to integration and an
accompanying surge of violence. In the face of that violence,
however, a broader commitment tocivil rights developed and

(09:00):
deepened. Those leading the work remained
steadfast and in so doing they helped to shift public opinion.
The outcry to the kidnapping andmurder of 14 year old Emmett
Till 70 years ago, the bus boycott in Montgomery, AL, sit

(09:21):
insurance at whites only lunch counters across the South.
All of these continued that steady drum beat for change in
1963, just hours after PresidentKennedy delivered a national
address asking Congress to pass civil rights legislation
describing civil rights as a moral issue as old as the

(09:44):
Scriptures and as clear as the American Constitution.
Just hours later, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered
standing in his own driveway carrying NAACP T-shirts that
read Jim Crow Must Go. And just two months later, the
1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom helped to

(10:08):
galvanized further support for the Civil Rights Act, which,
after 534 hours of debate, 500 amendments, was finally signed
into law by President Johnson. Surrounded by Doctor King, by
Doctor Dorothy Height and so many others who had struggled
their whole lives to see that day.

(10:32):
The Civil Rights Act and the EEOC were born of the enduring
struggle for civil rights and and we can trace that struggle
back further. To the movement for abolition,
to the women's rights movement, to the struggle of indigenous
people to preserve their sovereignty, to the resilience
of Japanese Americans during internment, the organizing of

(10:53):
immigrant laborers, and the fight to ensure that LGBTQ plus
people are simply free to be whothey are.
These movements are interwoven threads to this day.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 reflects our nation's highest
ideals of Equal Employment Opportunity.

(11:16):
But those who? Fought for passage of the law.
I don't think they saw it as a solution to bigotry, nor did
they expect it to end discrimination overnight.
Rather, it was one step in the larger and unending fight for
civil rights, for the dignity ofall people.

(11:36):
Civil rights leaders have openedthe door to progress in every
generation, but they have known that it would be on future
generations that it would be on us to keep those doors open and
to open them wider. This was true when Congress
passed the Age Discrimination and Employment Act in 1967, the

(11:58):
Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, and the Pregnant
Workers Fairness Act just a few years ago.
Today, the EEOC's doors remain open even as the agency lacks
quorum due to the President's unprecedented removal of my
fellow Democratic commissioners.Workers and advocates can file

(12:21):
charges of discrimination, whichour dedicated non political
career staff in our 53 offices around the country investigate
to determine whether the anti discrimination laws were
violated. EEOC staff negotiate with
employers to change practices and secure relief for workers.
The EEOC can also still pursue some litigation, especially

(12:45):
where the harms are egregious orwhere affected workers might not
have access to counsel. Of course, chronic underfunding
and under resourcing of the agency prevent us from doing
more. 60 years later, we know that discrimination in

(13:06):
employment is unfortunately still pervasive, and so the work
of the EEOC and the work of all of us remains crucial.
In fiscal year 2024 alone, the EEOC recovered nearly $700
million for more than 21,000 workers.
We received 88,000 charges of discrimination and more than

(13:30):
500,000 intake calls. Behind these numbers are real
people like the farm women we obtained $2.5 million for who
endured rampant sexual harassment in the fields.
Or the $8.7 million we recoveredfor a class of 83 black drivers

(13:50):
who were given more dangerous and more challenging work by
their employer and segregated from their white Co workers.
In another case, the EEOC obtained $365,000 for more than
200 job applicants where the employer software automatically
filtered out and rejected women over the age of 55 and men over

(14:15):
the age of 60. And in yet another, the agency
secured $100,000 to resolve a disability and pregnancy lawsuit
where the employer fired an employee days after she
requested leave to recover from a still birth.
And then there's the $460,000 that the EEOC recovered for two

(14:36):
mechanics in my home state of Ohio who were harassed and
subjected to physical violent violence simply for being gay.
These stories represent just a sliver of the EEOC's vital work,
from advancing equal pay to ensuring that workers with
disabilities, pregnancy related conditions, or sincerely held

(14:59):
religious beliefs can access reasonable accommodations.
They demonstrate the importance and the urgency of the continued
fight for equal opportunity. As I know our esteemed panel
will describe. Today, however, that access to
justice and equal opportunity isincreasingly under threat.

(15:23):
We are living in unprecedented times, a phrase that has become
almost banal in recent months. As the daughter of immigrants
who benefited from our nation's promise of equal opportunity, I
know that we can do better. This is again where I find

(15:43):
history to be so helpful. It provides us with two
reminders. First, the times have been hard
before, and they are certainly hard now, and they will
undoubtedly be hard again. And 2nd, that this work is
righteous. It is the work of building a

(16:06):
more just Society, of an economythat works for everyone.
To bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice, People
of conscience must act. We must work to bend that arc
together. With the work, with the action

(16:28):
of the people here and of peopleacross the country, I'm
confident that the EEOC will once again fully embrace its
founding mission, preventing andremedying discrimination for all
workers, especially the most vulnerable.
I stand ready to work with all of you, and I look forward to
the conversation ahead. Thank you so much.

(16:53):
Thank you so much, Commissioner Kotaka.
Those remarks are a perfect leadinto our our conversation today.
Appreciate you being with us. And now let me introduce our
terrific panel. In the interest of time, I will
just match names to faces, but you can and should read more
about them on our web page if you don't know them already.

(17:14):
Today we have with us Stacey Abrams, a political leader,
business owner and author, and we have Doctor Manuel Pasteur,
Distinguished Professor of Sociology and American Studies
and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California.
And it's my pleasure to turn it over to my friend and colleague,
Natalie Foster to moderate today's conversation.

(17:37):
Natalie's president and Co founder of the Economic Security
Project, a senior fellow here atthe Aspen Institute with our
Future of Work Initiative, and the author of the Guarantee
Inside the Fight for America's Next Economy, which if you
haven't read, you should. Natalie's a brilliant thinker,
organizer, advocate, and leader who brings heart, compassion,

(17:57):
and the courage of her convictions to all that she
does. So delighted to get to
collaborate with her here. And Natalie, thanks, and I'll
turn it over to you. Thank you so much, Maureen.
Thank you, Commissioner, for those remarks.
As we're saying, equal opportunity has always been at
the heart of the American story,right?
The belief that no matter who you are, your race, your gender,

(18:20):
your ZIP code, that you should be able to work hard, contribute
your talents, and to thrive. And we know that this promise
has never been fully realized. The commissioner laid out so
many milestones over the course of this nation's history.
It feels to me like we are living through the backlash to a

(18:41):
lot of that progress where institutions are being
weaponized, opportunity, equity and fairness are being defunded,
and this we are seeing the scapegoating of marginalized
communities. That's why this conversation
today feels so urgent but also hopeful because we have two with

(19:02):
us, 2 leaders who bring different perspectives but are
deeply connected perspectives. And they're two of my favorite
meaning makers at this moment inhistory.
So I'm really excited to dig in with you all.
And I'm going to turn it over toyou for opening remarks.
And Stacy will go to you first. You know, you've been a tireless

(19:23):
advocate for equity, access and democratic participation.
You have inspired millions of people to get involved in the
process through your races, through the elected office
positions you've held, but also through your new podcast and the
work doing today. So tell us where we are today
and and why it's so important wecontinue to embrace and defend

(19:45):
these ideals. First of all, Natalie, thank you
so much for having me, and thankyou to the Aspen Institute for
this invitation. I've recently been spending a
great deal of time talking aboutthe 10 steps to autocracy and
authoritarianism. I talk about them because this
is not a. Prognostication of what's to

(20:07):
come it's a description of wherewe are in 7 1/2 months this
nation has descended into authoritarianism and by
understanding that, by recognizing that we have the
opportunity to then decide wherewe want to go next.
Unlike other nation states that were democracies, that fell,

(20:27):
Venezuela, Hungary, Turkey, Russia, if we remember, was a
democracy. The entry into autocracy and
authoritarianism doesn't happen all at once.
But when it starts, it does not stop unless the people stop it.
And we know it when we see it, but we don't always have the

(20:47):
language to use. We know that we start to see
after the election the executiveexpand his power and it's almost
always a man. We see the weakening of
competing powers. We see the legislative branch
bend the knee or become complicit and sometimes
instigate behaviors. And we see the judiciary at the

(21:09):
highest levels refuse to take the responsibility it has.
We then see government gutted. We see them break how it works
because people will not fight for something that will not
fight for it. And so you see the CDC
dismantled. You see the closure of national
parks because they've stripped them of staff.
You see people, elderly folks who are sitting on phones for

(21:31):
hours trying to get access to their Social Security checks
only to be met with a chat bot that doesn't understand them.
You break government, so it doesn't work for anyone.
So we forget why we have it. In Step 5, you see loyalist
installed in positions of power so they can go after their
enemies. They are not loyal to the
people, they're not loyal to theconstitution, they're loyal to

(21:52):
the autocrat in the authoritarian regime.
Step 6, you see the dismantling of media.
You watch in horror as we gut public broadcasting as formally
formidable broadcasting companies pay extortion fees in
order to stay alive. But then you also see the rise
of a media ecosystem that tells lies as though it's truth, and

(22:16):
we don't have the ability to discern the difference.
Step 7 is the step that I'm the most afraid of, and that brings
us here today. And that is that you scapegoat
people, that you have to blame someone for the brokenness.
And that is why we've watched this administration so
aggressively go after DEI, because if you can blame someone
else, you don't have to take responsibility.

(22:38):
And what worries me the most is that it's not just coming from
the government. It's coming from the very people
who benefit from DEI, from the corporations and other
organizations that know that DEIworks.
As the commissioner pointed out,DEI is the lifeblood of this
country. It is a value system that has
made us great, and we are quickly avoiding it and voiding

(22:58):
out its promise. Step 8 is that we then go after,
and we watch as they go after our civil society, as they break
those who would protect us. They sue the law firms, they go
after the universities, and theyarrest protesters.
Step 9 is the rise of private violence that is often attended
by the rise of a private police,a secret police.

(23:20):
That is what ICE agents who masktheir faces are.
That's what National Guardsmen occupying our cities looks like.
And then Step 10 is the end of democracy as we know it, because
while we may have elections, we no longer truly have the right
to vote. That's why we're watching
midterm redistricting that is designed to architect who wins
the next election. It's why we see voters being

(23:41):
purged and other voters being told don't bother showing up.
It's why mail in voting is underthreat.
But the reason I call out those 10 steps to autocracy and
authoritarianism is because we've got 10 steps to power and
freedom. And our opportunity in this
moment is to recognize that while we are in the midst of an
authoritarian regime, it is not taking firm hold.

(24:01):
We are still fighting back. We're still speaking up, but we
need more of us. So we have to recognize what's
at stake. We have to activate ourselves
around it, and then we have to reclaim our right as patriots to
a country that sees us and serves us, and that's the work
that we have before us. Thank you.
I hope you'll lay out those 10 steps toward power and freedom
over the course of this next hour.

(24:24):
Stacy. Manny, I want to turn to you for
some opening reflections. You know, we've seen people
across race, class and geographywho are feeling extreme
precarity and are rightly feeling like our economics and
our politics aren't working for them.
They're seeing enormous amounts of wealth being generated, but
none of it showing up in their communities, their schools,
their affordable housing. So how did we get to this unique

(24:47):
moment in history, and how do webegin to dig ourselves out of
it? Thank you for the very small and
easy question, and thanks to Aspen for having us here.
I feel like what I should reallyjust say is I yield my time to
the gentlewoman from Georgia because I want to hear those 10

(25:08):
steps, too. But I'm an academic, which means
I'm prepared to fill the six minutes that you've given me.
And what I'd like to do is to say that the story beneath the
story that Stacey is talking about is the rise in inequality
in the United States. If you look at the single most

(25:30):
dramatic economic phenomena that's occurred over the last
four decades, it's been a rise in the share of income going to
the top 1%. In the 40s, fifties, 60s, 70s,
about 10% of national income wasgoing to the top 1%,

(25:51):
disproportionate, but that's what it was.
Now it's more than 1/4 of national income going to the top
1% and holding on. Behind them is a group of a 1 to
5%, five to 10% professionals, elites that are hoarding
opportunity. And in that context of rising

(26:16):
inequality, in that context of folks hoarding what little
opportunity they have, the wholenotions of equal opportunity
have begun to fall flat. We've gotten what Stacey Abrams
rightly refers to as scapegoating, trying to say that

(26:37):
the decline in living standards for most of us has been a result
of immigrants competing, when the truth is that immigrants are
complementary work that is blamed on Black folks being able
to get a step ahead into some jobs.

(26:58):
But in fact, if you look at the progress of Black to white
median household income, it's been stagnant for the last 40
years. There's been very little
progress, despite the efforts that have been in there.
So that has led to a reaction offear and of feeding into white

(27:19):
supremacy as a reaction. It's also meant that for a lot
of people of color, equal opportunity feels like
rearranging tears on the Titanic, creating pathways for
someone to become a professor rather than for a construction
worker to lead a decent life, rather than for a nurse or a

(27:42):
caregiver to be able to get ahead.
So what we need to do is to wed equal opportunity in terms of a
pathway for people to make it tothe middle class with a strategy
to lift the working class so that those kind of resentments
aren't there that are racial or are perceived simply as some

(28:05):
parts of people of color gettingahead.
How do we do that? We need to shake a few bad
habits. One of them is counterposing
race versus class, thinking thatthose two things are
disconnected and that if we wanted to talk about race, we
have to stop talking about the broad messages or broad patterns

(28:29):
of income inequality. They are tied together or that,
and Stacey knows this well, participating in the Democratic
Party, which has that. Some people believe that what we
need to do is simply talk about class and ignore race.
But that is going to demobilize the populations that we need to
activate to be able to make change.

(28:50):
So we need to have a story that weds race and class.
The other thing we need to do isto understand equal opportunity
is only real when we make it real.
So we need to be thinking not just about suing so that people
don't face discrimination at work.

(29:11):
That's important. But how do we do job training?
How do we have comprehensive immigration reform so that
people aren't in the shadows, fearful of what is going to
happen to them, and they can begin to get the skills to make
opportunity real? We need to shed our bad habits,

(29:31):
and we need to talk about race and class in the same breath.
And we need to talk about how tomake opportunity real, not just
for elites to get ahead, but forthe masses of the American
public to make their lives, lives of dignity and
opportunity. Dignity and opportunity, indeed.

(29:56):
Stacy, you've described an infernal triangle of
delegitimization, litigation andlegislation that is designed to
roll back equal opportunity. I think it was one of the
numbers you laid out in the top ten in the 10 steps toward
authoritarianism. And you've argued that
maintaining the language of DEI,of diversity, equity, and

(30:16):
inclusion is really important inthis conversation and today.
So talk to us about the attacks on the language and the
challenges we're going to need to address.
Thank you, Doctor. Pastor actually gave a perfect
example. They we often hear the language
of income inequality, which presumes the counter narrative

(30:37):
of income equality, which is notwhat anyone's actually
intending. But instead of having a
conversation about economic opportunity, we get caught up in
the language. And that's intentional.
But we shouldn't stop talking about income inequality.
We don't decide because billionaires say that they don't
care that we're no longer going to use that language.

(30:58):
And yet when that language oftenattendance, issues of identity
or issues of access in humanity,we get caught up in this
narrative of we have to change what we say.
And that leads to the infernal triangle.
Those who oppose our rights begin by delegitimizing our
language. We saw this happen in the 1970s

(31:19):
around abortion. Most people forget that the
Southern Baptist Convention did a resolution supporting abortion
rights before they were against it.
And we saw it happen very recently with the use of the
language of woke, which was brought was created by a
community of color to describe how aware they have to be, how

(31:39):
where we have to be of the threats that we face.
And so we have to recognize thatthe delegitimization of our
language, the attacks on our language are not because they
would prefer we use different words.
If they don't like the meaning, they don't like the value
system. Those who oppose DEI believe in
uniformity, they believe in exclusion and they believe in,

(32:02):
they believe in sorry, uniformity, exclusion and
unfairness. That's what they want.
But if they can convince us to argue about what we call
ourselves, they never have to get to the values that they are
decrying. So delegitimization is the
beginning. But they're smart because it's
not enough to delegitimize. You then have to litigate, to
dismantle what has been built. And as the commissioner pointed

(32:23):
out, this is a nation that has spent 250 years in reclamation,
but also in construction. We have built the laws we need
to support the people we must protect, whether we're talking
about the Immigration and Nationalization Act of 19, 65,
or we're talking about the Americans with Disabilities Act,
the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, but it's also the

(32:44):
FMLA. All of those are DEI laws.
The Department of Education was born out of the DEI law.
And so we have to recognize thatthe attacks on DEI aren't simply
the attack on the language. It's also a predicate for
attacking the laws themselves because if you can dismantle the
infrastructure and the protection, then you get to the
third part. And that third prong in the

(33:05):
infernal triangle is that you start to legislate away rights.
You start to see language going into the law saying we can never
have it back. And it typically starts at the
state level. The moment the Students for
Ferret admissions decision was issued by the Supreme Court,
state started outlawing DEI. But the Supreme Court never said
you couldn't have DEI. It said very narrowly that

(33:28):
colleges and universities could not use race as a primary factor
in admissions to higher education.
They did not say you couldn't have an office for Native of
American students who are first generation.
But they have taken the opportunity to legislate against
our rights. And so we have to cling to our
language because it describes what we believe.

(33:48):
If we do not believe it, then yes, stop saying it.
But if you believe that diversity means all people, if
you believe that equity means fair access to opportunity, if
you stand for the predicate thatinclusion is a native good
because it means respect for others, then DEI should be the
language we use. And most fundamentally, I don't
change my name just because someone calls me out of it.

(34:09):
I don't change my identity because a third grade bully
decides to mock me. But it works because we spend so
much of our time trying to justify ourselves to those who
oppose us, We forget to harness our truth for ourselves.
I don't believe we change the language because you cannot
fight the fight that the enemy wants you to fight.
You have to fight the fight thatyou need to win, win and we need

(34:30):
to win the fight for diversity, equity and inclusion.
Doctor, Pastor, is there more you want to say on language?
I know you're such a deep student of words and how they
matter in the world. So very profound what Stacy
said, and I want to lift up two other things.

(34:50):
I think that we get into a language trap around.
I am trained as an economist. That's when my PhD is in.
And you know, traditionally the economic debate has been about
individuals, free markets, smallbusiness, and that's been pitted

(35:14):
against the state collective, a different approach.
And that's been our traditional ideological polls in the United
States. And that language winds up
getting weaponized because equalopportunity gets presented as an
individual issue. It's so a strategy which has, I

(35:38):
wanted to call you Governor Abrams, because that's wish what
I wish had happened. What Stacey said is to take into
account people's history in the context of admissions, in the
context of job training, in the context of aid for a particular
neighborhood or a particular people.

(36:00):
And you've got people on the other side saying we have to
ignore all that. It's got to be an individual
thing we're looking at. But you know what?
That's not what they really mean.
Because while the traditional debate in the United States has
been between individuals and collectives, markets in the
state, currently it's between tribes and mutuality.

(36:22):
Because it's about protecting a particular group of people and
their billionaire friends and making sure that with the use of
tariffs, with the use of different kinds of programs,
that group is protected and others are pushed away.
So it's not that they're trying to lift up the importance of

(36:42):
individuals. They're trying to exclude people
who've been trying to break in for years because they don't
understand the power of diversity, the power of
mutuality versus the power of just protecting your tribe.
And that gets me to the second thing that I think we need to
change in our debate, and it's about thinking about equity as

(37:07):
just fairness and inclusion. And I'll tell you why I am
blessed. And I wouldn't say I was blessed
because turns out I'm very successful.
But that's partly because my dadwas in a union and that helped
our family move from being poor to being working class.

(37:28):
And it's partly because there was a civil rights law, and when
restrictive redlining fell, we were able to buy a house in a
place that had decent public schools.
And it's also because when therewas a chance for me to go to
college, there was affirmative action to take a chance on a kid
like me that did not fit the typical profile.

(37:51):
So I benefited from all of thoseprograms.
And partly as a result, I have an endowed chair.
It's actually sitting right behind me.
That chair right back there is the endowed chair.
But it also came with a lot of money.
And I asked the guy, sort of a center right Republican, how did
she get so rich? Really great guy.

(38:12):
And he said, well, I treated my customers right.
I treated my workers right. I treated my suppliers right.
And the business worked out. And we know in our heart of
hearts that's how sustainable businesses work over the long
term. That's the argument that Stacey

(38:33):
was using about diversity being good for business.
And there's a lot of research done by the International
Monetary Fund, done by the Federal Reserve, done by me,
looking at how it is that equityis actually conducive to
prosperity. Because we know when you have

(38:54):
this level of racist over incarceration, that's tripping
away talent that we need to grow.
We know when you have an immigration system, people like
to say it's broken. It's not broken.
It's working the way they think it should work to exclude people
to marginalized people, to chew people up that we are tossing

(39:15):
away talent. We know that when we under
invest in schools in low income areas, particularly black and
brown kids that were short changing our productivity for
the future. We know when we don't invest in
a care economy, it means that our productive workers who've

(39:36):
got elders and children that they're worried about can't be
at ease while they're at work. We know that equity is conducive
to prosperity. It's a what I think is really
critical in terms of debate as well is, yes, to fly our
fairness and inclusion flag, butto continue to talk about how

(39:56):
this is all part of unleashing talent to have a more productive
and prosperous economy going forward.
That's wonderful. And I really appreciate your
point on mutuality to your book Solidarity Economics that you
wrote with Chris Benner, I thinklays out the case really well

(40:19):
there, and I hope folks check that out.
It is a very good book. I will recommend it good.
But let's look ahead now and I want to talk a little bit about
some of the institutions we're going to need for the future.
And it's a pleasure to get to dowith you.
Stacey, who is a well documentedsci-fi nerd, thinks a lot about
the future. And you, Emmanuel, who has

(40:41):
always looked to the past to point to where we need to go, as
you've done. And one of my favorite books of
yours, The State of Resistance about California.
And you know, Stacy, you said this, that we've, we've been a
nation at 250 years in reclamation and construction.
And let's turn to the construction we'll need in the
future, right? If you think of us, Reverend

(41:02):
Barber talks about the the thirdReconstruction that's needed in
America, with the first Reconstruction, you know, being
after the Civil War and the institutions we built then, like
the Friedman's Bureau, right, that was designed to support the
formerly enslaved black Americans, but also the poor
white Americans who were left destitute after the Civil War.

(41:24):
And that is the time we got the first public schools right in
this country or the second reconstruction in the civil
rights era, where we got so manyof the institutions and the
agencies and the laws that we'vebeen discussing today, including
the EEOC. So as we think about 1/3
reconstruction, what are the institutions and the agencies

(41:46):
that will be fit for that momentthat we will need in the future?
And Stacey will go to you first.I I begin by thinking about what
this moment of authoritarian rise has revealed to us.
We have relied extraordinarily heavily on not just norms, but
on values. We have believed that those who

(42:06):
stand for public office are willing to do what they can and
what they should for the benefitof others.
And we can no longer trust that the system will hold, because
our values will hold. We have seen not simply a person
who won the office of president take on an expansive nature
notion of power. We have seen members of his

(42:28):
party suborn support and encourage the tearing away of
values and the tearing away of rights from others.
And so our first responsibility is to move the Office of Civil
Rights from being a subset of a subset of the Department of
Justice to being its own standalone agency.
We need an agency that is dedicated to civil rights, civil

(42:51):
liberties, and diversity, equityand inclusion.
So see civil rights, civil liberties, and DEI.
Because these pieces are yoked together.
If you do not have DEI, then youdon't have civil rights.
If you do not have civil liberties, your ability to call
out the attacks on your civil rights aren't real.
But as long as it is sublimated to a Department of Justice that

(43:13):
is under the control of someone who may or not may or may not
believe in justice, we are in danger.
So that needs to be a standaloneagency #2 we need a voting
rights agent. Voting rights should not be
something that is tucked underneath another subset.
It is the cornerstone of how we make government work.
And as someone who fights for democracy, I don't fight for

(43:35):
democracy because I like the construct.
If there were better constructs,we'd go with them.
I like democracy because democracy is how we guarantee
our voices are heard, our needs are lifted up.
We can't guarantee they'll be met, but we can guarantee they
will be talked about. And that means that the right to
vote should not be at the whim of those who get to decide whose
voices they want to hear. The reason we are fighting over

(43:58):
gerrymandering, the reason we are listening to the possibility
of money being stripped away from states that refuse to
eliminate mail in voting, is because we have treated voting
as an afterthought when is actually the linchpin of how our
nation can operate as a democracy.
So that needs to be an agency #3we need a, we need a department

(44:19):
of economic power. Economic power is not the same
as economic quality. We need to believe that people's
economic power determines every other decision they make.
And Doctor Pastor has talked about it.
You've written about it beautifully.
When people feel economically secure, they feel comfortable

(44:39):
granting the humanity of others.We watched in this last election
as people who knew that they would be harming folks they
cared about said that it was more important to them that the
price of eggs come down, that a transgender child have access to
information and to protection and safety.
We should not be in a position where people feel they have to
trade their humanity for economic convenience and

(45:02):
economic security. And that means that we have to
believe in economic power. We don't have to.
And we cannot solve all of the isms that are rife in humanity,
but we can mitigate their effectiveness if we are focused
heavily on developing economic power.
And if you're talking about power, power is not simply about

(45:22):
mitigating past harms. It's about building future
capacity. And that's what Doctor Pistorius
talked about so eloquently. We should be focused on that
exclusively. We should have a department that
is thinking about, that is goingthrough regulations, that is
going through what states are deciding and making certain that
economic power is at the forefront of what we're
delivering. Poor people don't hate rich

(45:43):
people. Poor people want to be rich
people. I believe that we need a nation
of thousandaires, people who believe that their economic
security is so safe that it is OK to want others to have their
rights and their liberties. But as long as we think that
Maslow's higher need isn't real,then we are always going to be
fighting to fix the very, very least that we can instead of

(46:04):
building what we need and what we deserve.
And so if we we guarantee rights, if we guarantee
responsibility, if we guarantee economic access, the rest of it,
the rest of I think our agenciesare in good stead.
We just need better people and them and we need to make certain
that they are no longer susceptible to the rise of
authoritarianism. Because the problem I have is

(46:25):
that much of what Donald Trump is doing, much of what the
Republican Party has suborned, and this is not partisan.
These are the people who hold the power.
So it's not about who got elected, it's about who holds
the power. Now these communities of power
have decided that their self-interest Trump's everyone
else, no pun intended. And so it is our responsibility
to ensure that irrespective of who holds the job, that the work

(46:49):
still gets done. And we need agencies that make
that absolutely true. Doctor, Pastor, what would you
add to the Department of Economic Power and Voting
Rights? I very much like that near
mention of Reverend Barber, mademe remember that over the course
of my life, I've had to follow Jesse Jackson after he spoke,

(47:11):
Reverend Barber after he spoke, and now Stacey Abrams after she
spoke. So I'm either the luckiest or
most unlucky speaker that I knowabout.
We just. Look, we're just happy we get to
go first, so. The I, you know, I want to say 1
thing first again about languagethat I think very much echoes

(47:35):
what Stacey talked about is thatI think another thing that the
left sometimes kind of gets wrong talking about income
inequality is to say, well, there's enough wealth to go
around. There probably is.
But I think what appeals to people more is there's enough
work to go around. There's enough opportunities to

(47:59):
contribute, to earn and to own, to become a thousandaire, as
Stacey was talking about, to really have assets.
And I think it doesn't mean thateveryone will quirk.
That's not the only thing that you can do in the world.
And certainly one of the things I, I was so glad that you
mentioned the Americans for Disability act in the on ramps

(48:21):
that cause people to be able to contribute and participate and
feel whole in the in the world with what they're able to do.
But I do think we need to focus in on that.
And I think in terms of the institutions, Stacey, certainly
name them, I would say we need to rebuild unions.

(48:41):
That's an important institution for leveraging power and working
voice. We need to make the promise of
the incarceration real with actual programs about free entry
so that people can be successful.
We need, and it's controversial,comprehensive immigration reform

(49:02):
so that a large share of those who've been in the country for
such a long time and contributing can actually find a
path. And that's also going to require
institutions for immigrant integration so that people can
actually be successful, learn English, be able to go to
Community College, etcetera. Certainly we need tax reform.

(49:25):
And then another thing that doesn't frequently get lifted up
is that we need to support regional economic partnerships.
Because it is at the level of the region that people meet face
to face, race to race, place to place, and sometimes discover

(49:47):
the commonalities that they throw away when they move to a
national stage and get into the kabuki theatre of Congress and
go red against blue. Rather than people who are
neighbors whose fates are indeeddeeply interconnected and
interdependent. Finally, one thing I think that

(50:10):
we're going to need to learn is that being successful at this
work is about combining power building so you can get to the
table with economic expertise, so you can participate with the
experts. And we've too often deforest the

(50:32):
community organizers. There's a lot in this crowd who
are doing the power building to make sure the voices are there
from the economic development experts who have the language
that needs to be there. We need to bring those two
groups together because the onlyway that equity will get to the

(50:52):
table is when it's kicking and screaming and making a big fuss.
But once you get to the table, you need to be able to say and
by the way, I know exactly how we can get small businesses
going. I know how much of a minimum
wage we can absorb. I know the DEI programs that are
actually effective. I know the RE entry programs

(51:14):
that work. I know how we can tap into
naturalization classes on site so that lawful permanent
immigrants can find their way tonaturalization, which creates a
boost in their wages and a boostin productivity.
We need to marry the expertise with the power building.
Well, let's stay on that note, Doctor, Pastor, and talk about

(51:38):
what people can be doing today, because with us today are
hundreds of people from around the country who come from very
different perspectives and organizations.
So we have workforce and economic development folks,
local government folks, people involved in legal advocacy,
worker and human rights, the labor movement, grassroots
organizers, many of them are with us today.

(52:00):
And So what how do you think about the roles these different
entities play at the local leveland what should people be
thinking about today in the fight for opportunity?
Well, I talked a little bit about it and what I just said.
So I will just add one thing, probably about 15 years ago,

(52:22):
along with the California Community Foundation, which is
really the LA Community Foundation, but it's LA, so we
just say it's California becausewe think we are the world.
And our Research Center helped put together a council on
immigrant integration. Now it's called Immigrant
inclusion. And weirdly enough, probably the

(52:44):
most important thing I asked people to do is homework.
From the first meeting was to take someone out to breakfast
that they didn't know that they didn't usually work with.
And the head of the leading immigrant rights organization
was out asked out to breakfast by the person running the

(53:04):
education programs at the Chamber of Commerce.
Four years later, the LA Chamberwas supporting comprehensive
immigration reform as one of itstop three priorities in DC.
And when the raids just happenedin LA, the Chamber of Commerce
condemned them because of the impact on the economy.

(53:26):
And the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation launched
a study on the impact. And we identified very much more
with community based organizations, unions, et
cetera, are working with LADC onthis study about what the local
impacts are of the deportations and how we can keep our families

(53:47):
and our economy together. So I think, and I think Stacey
can testify to this, that one ofthe most important things to do
is to form lasting relationshipsthat cross traditional
boundaries so we can begin to realize in our soul that, yes, a

(54:09):
more diverse table is a richer table in terms of ideas.
Yes, a more equitable region in the long run is a more
prosperous region. And yes, thinking about how we
form community and award dignityto everyone gets you to not be

(54:29):
divided about that trans kid, because that trans kid deserves
dignity, which deserves to be wrapped in the love of a family
and community. And equity for that kid, for
those who are marginalized, is going to benefit all of us.
Stacy, how about you? What advice do you have for

(54:51):
people working on the ground right now in pursuit of equal
opportunity? I would to build off of Doctor
Pasteur. We have to believe in alignment,
not agreement. Agreement says that we come to
our decisions for the same reasons.
We bring the same experiences, or at least we have the same
philosophical grounding, and that's not necessary.

(55:14):
My job, before I ran for governor, I was the Minority
Leader and the Georgia General Assembly.
I used to joke that they call you leader to make you feel
good, but they call you minorityso you never forget your place.
And the reason that mattered wasthat I could not accomplish a
single bill. I couldn't pass 1, and I
couldn't stop one unless I got people from the other party to

(55:35):
work with me. And one of my favorite examples
was when there was a terrible bill that would have eroded
stream buffers in Georgia. And the Chamber of Commerce of
Georgia, which is not quite as enlightened as the LA Chamber of
Commerce, was very much in favorof it.
The governor wanted the bill. It sailed through the Senate,
and the Lieutenant governor and the speaker was happy to move
it. But on the House side, I invited

(55:58):
a colleague who was the head of the Tea Party to lunch, and we
had a conversation. And to paraphrase it, like, you
don't believe in climate change.And she was like, Nah, that's
not my issue. I said, but you do believe in
property values. Your property values will be
eroded if the stream buffers areallowed to erode the value of

(56:18):
your property because those big companies that are going to take
advantage of this aren't going to be paying your tax bill, but
the county where you live is going to still need the same
amount of money. We were in alignment about this
bill and we worked together for three years to block that bill's
passage. And they finally have to had to
give up. I don't think that agreement is

(56:39):
vital. It's nice to have, it feels
good, it has a great psychic benefit.
But alignment is what gets us where we need to be and what
Doctor Bastore was describing. When 2 communities come together
that do not necessarily have an agreement about the source of
the problem or the solution, they might find alignment and
taking certain steps together. Alignment allows you to diverge

(57:02):
when you need to, but you can get so much further ahead when
you are aligned on why it needs on what needs to happen, not why
it needs to happen. A lot of the work that I do
looks at the intersection of economic power, civic power, and
individual power. And too often, as Doctor Bustard
defined it, described it, we seethese as three separate gears.

(57:25):
But if we want the machinery to work, if we want democracy to
work, if we want to deliver for communities, if we want economic
opportunity and civic participation to be real, if we
want, if we want people to believe that they have the right
to a better life, then we've gotto bring those pieces together.
And so to the extent people are only talking about economic

(57:45):
power or only working on civic participation, or think that
this is about the individual, until we bring those three
things together, we are working with a broken machine.
And those who are working together, those who want us not
to have those things learned a long time ago, to work in
unison, we've got to work together on these things.
Because when we put those three gears together, the speed of

(58:08):
progress is extraordinary. And that's what we saw happen in
the first reconstruction. That's what we saw happen in the
second reconstruction. And in this third moment where
we have to not just reconstruct,we have to reclaim our nation
from authoritarian power, we should not be trying to fix what
was broken. We should be using those gears
to build what we should have hadall along.

(58:30):
And that is a nation that works for everyone, whether you were
born here or you come here. And I, I want to take one moment
of personal privilege. Dr. Pasteur said that talking
about immigration is controversial.
We have to understand that immigration is not
controversial. The propaganda around
immigration is controversial, and we have to cut through that

(58:52):
language. Going back to the 10 steps to
autocracy, the 10 steps to freedom and power mean that we
have to believe, we have to recognize what they're doing.
We have to activate ourselves todo better, and then we have to
reclaim our right to win. Those are things we can do
together, especially if we come together across organizations,
across communities, across philosophies.

(59:14):
I don't say that you work with someone who is diametrically
opposed to you in values, but wedon't have to have the same
outcomes in mind to have the same direction to get there.
I just want to echo that. I think that's such an important
point. And I often talk about how when
people phrase the word collaboration, they think about

(59:37):
doing stuff with people that arein total agreement with that's
really just hanging out with your friends.
Collaboration is principles conflict.
It's having some values agree on, trying to think about
objectives, green out some principles, and having some
principles about how you conflict.
Conflicting with integrity, withrespect, with honesty, without

(01:00:02):
manipulation, and then being able to then come back to that
person again. Because that's been built up
through principled conflict, notthrough easy agreement.
Yeah, that's great. So I'm going to take some
audience questions now that havecome in prior to today as well

(01:00:23):
as today's chat. And then we'll close on a note
of asking you each to give us something that is making you
hopeful in this moment. But first I want to read a
question that came in today. And and this person says great
point from both speakers about systems not being broken, but
work working as they were designed.
So with that in mind, what are your thoughts on working within
and outside these systems in this moment?

(01:00:46):
I think we've had echoes of thatquestion through all of your
comments, but I thought it was worth lifting up in this moment.
And Doctor Prestora, let's go first to you.
Well, that is a really great question.
In a class I teach, I always sayI don't use the term
disadvantaged because that sounds like it might be an

(01:01:08):
accident, like, or, you know, wewere doing this and we forgot
about you. Sorry.
It's really structurally disempowered.
And it's often the way the system works.
I think the challenge is figuring out how to both disrupt

(01:01:31):
systems and then recreate systems that work, how to be
both inside and outside. And I really want to turn over
things to Stacey because she's been an expert at doing this,
both disrupting by animating an entirely new electorate to try
to change what's going on, but actually learning to operate in

(01:01:54):
those systems. And I think in the economic
development world, this is actually also very important
too. There's a whole system of
economic development. We need to learn that language
and we also need to push it to center equity more, to open up
the doors more, to include geographic areas, rural areas,

(01:02:14):
urban areas that have a haven't always been primary.
I, I would absolutely agree thatwe have to have an inside,
outside strategy. So I, I wrote a book called Lead
from the Outside and the whole point was exactly that.
I do not reflect the typical leadership style when I became

(01:02:35):
Minority Leader, and I only say this by way of example.
When I became Minority Leader, Iwas the first woman to lead a
party in the history of Georgia.I was the first black person to
lead in the House of Representatives and 1st black
women to do a lot of stuff. And so the reason that mattered
was that there was an estimationof my capacity that decided to
de emphasize what I could do, that I was inherently on the

(01:02:56):
outside because I didn't look like those who had power.
But my rise to that role came about because I understand that
we have to have an inside and anoutside strategy.
As Minority Leader, it was my job to go into rooms with the
speaker of the House, with the governor, and negotiate on
behalf of not just my colleagues, but on behalf of the
constituents we represented. That was an inside strategy.

(01:03:19):
I had to work with the power as it existed to do what I called
either stop stupid or at least slow it down.
But I also have the responsibility of an outside
strategy. As Minority Leader is my job to
be the voice of those who did not have power and were entitled
to that power. And that meant that I would have
to sometimes castigate and harangue those who were taking

(01:03:39):
power from them, knowing two days later I was going to have
to ask them for something. We have to stop believing that
this is about courtesy, this is about courage, and it's about
what we believe we should have. And so yes, that requires an
inside and an outside strategy, but those two strategy have to
be intentional. You also have to have allies,
and we don't have to do it all ourselves.

(01:04:01):
Sometimes your inside strategy is supporting someone you don't
like that much, but because theyare already in the room, you're
going to work with them to make sure they can stay there.
I was in the Governor's task force on Jobs and business
recovery during COVID and I veryearly on said, boy, this is
going to be racially desperate. And immigrant communities in

(01:04:21):
particular are going to be hard hit because they were left out
of the CARES Act in terms of aidbecause of the fear of accessing
healthcare because of the kind of work that they had.
And that issue got ignored over and over again until a couple
months in, in one of these meetings, I said pretty and

(01:04:41):
blatantly, what the F is wrong with you people?
I've been talking about this. What could I have done better to
make it so clear, to make sure that the most they call them
disadvantaged neighborhoods had testing that was equivalent to
the rest of the neighborhoods inany particular county.
And they made opening up of counties to business conditional

(01:05:03):
on being able to meet the standards around testing and
around getting vaccines out to communities.
So you got to be inside and sometimes you have to do what
Stacy talked about and which I guess I modeled as well, which
is scream a little bit loud. Alex.
Dean asks. How can States and?

(01:05:24):
Localities have agency over the structures for equal opportunity
and I think it's an important question for the audience today.
What can States and localities broadly be doing?
Stacey, we'll go first to you. So I I.
Served as deputy city. Attorney for Atlanta.
In the beginning of my career, and what I would say is that we

(01:05:45):
often look for macro solutions where state and local
governments are experts at microsolutions.
So instead of working against, particularly if you are a city
that's in a state that has preemption powers, which is most
of the South and some of the West, part of the responsibility
is to figure out what is the smallest unit of power you can

(01:06:06):
leverage to accomplish the greatest end that you seek.
So with your small businesses, what is it that's stopping them?
There are sometimes regulatory changes you can make at the city
level that can unlock economic power.
There are things that the state,if the state is actually in
lockstep with you and wants goodto happen, you can work at the
state level. But we should never preclude the

(01:06:27):
notion that small changes linkedtogether can have massive
effect. So whether it's removing one of
the steps in a permitting process or it is making sure
that you are having conversations as a local
government with the banks to make sure those banking
opportunities are made available, that you are locating
your meetings in the communitieswhere people don't think you

(01:06:49):
will show up. We don't have to bring people to
City Hall. City Hall can come to them.
And often it's simply showing upthat demonstrates the economic
opportunity is real. It's also shifting our narrative
from it being about small businesses themselves to the
people who run those businesses.If you have a small business but
you can't afford daycare, then you have to be having a

(01:07:09):
conversation. As a local government, how do we
solve for that problem? Is it that we stand up a
cooperative? Is it that we incentivize shared
behavior and shared pools of funding?
But the local governments have not just organ, not not just
legislative power, they have organizing power and convening
power. When I ran for governor, part of

(01:07:30):
my intention was to expand who believes they had a seat at the
table. And that's what state and local
governments can do without permission.
You can use the structures you have to expand access, but also
to expand information. Every city, every county, every
state sends out some notice of some kind.
Whether you're collecting taxes or notifying someone about a

(01:07:51):
water bill. Use that communication as an
opportunity to share information.
Because what tends to preclude the most disempowered
communities from participation is not that they don't want,
it's that they don't know. And the power of government is
the ability to give people information and then show them
how that information can be usedfor their benefit.

(01:08:13):
And we also need to talk about tax policy because tax policy is
something no one talks about. It is my favorite topic.
And structurally, if we can use state and local governments to
start to model better tax behavior, we can change a lot
about the economic opportunitiesthat are available to our
communities. Dr. Prestor, you're a person
who? Talks about tax policy.

(01:08:33):
Any any comments on the state and local question so I'm from.
California and I. Know everyone thinks that's just
an entirely different place. I just want to remind you that
we gave the world Richard Nixon,Ronald Reagan, tax cutting
fervor, anti immigrant hysteria and the elimination of bilingual

(01:08:56):
education, affirm and affirmative action and then race
to over incarceration that outpaced the rest of the United
States. So we've been on this arc of
change. And I also want to point out how
much something in California called the California Racial
Equity Commission. I would ask folks who are
interested take a look for this very important reason we've been

(01:09:21):
operating under Prop 209, the elimination of affirmative
action. We cannot use race in university
admissions decisions and basically in local government.
But we can pursue racial equity by looking at some of the other

(01:09:41):
underlying factors that have to do with over incarceration, that
have to do with underinvestment in schools, that have to do with
tribal communities not getting resources.
So you often think because there's a ruling at the Supreme
Court about Harvard's affirmative action program that

(01:10:03):
pursuing racial equity is banned.
We can't use race. And yet we are actively.
Looking at whether or not we have disparate outcomes and what
are the mechanisms we can use toproduce outcomes that are more
equitable and beneficial for everyone, that can happen at a

(01:10:23):
local and state level. If I can add one piece here DEI
is. Not illegal.
What Students for Fair Admissions said was simply that
you cannot use race as the primary factor in college
admissions. DEI is still legal.
Every executive order issued by this administration is unlawful
on its face because it did not change the law itself.

(01:10:45):
And so I encourage you to go to aprnetwork.org, which is a
series of organizations that created that deal with DEI.
And we've got two things I want you to look at.
One is the litany of laws that are technically DEI laws that
they would have to dismantle to actually dismantle DEI.
The second is that we have a chat bot called Adiva and Adiva
will answer your questions aboutyour programming.

(01:11:07):
We cannot give legal advice, butwe can give legal guidance and
much of what people think has become unlawful because of the
specter of anti DEI fervor. Nothing changed.
There are still so many things that we can do and I know the
commissioner knows this and I know Doctor Pistor knows this.
Please know that DEI is not illegal and it is to your

(01:11:28):
benefit and we can help you understand more about what you
can do and get you resources to help you figure out what else
you need. That's great.
That's my public service announcement.
Yes, and. And a chatbot.
Included I'm I'm loving this. Let's do final thoughts, Doctor
Prestora, let's go to you. What's one thing that's giving
you hope in this moment and any final thoughts?

(01:11:50):
The city I live in, Los Angeles,which.
Has risen up in response to the authoritarian raids and
basically the dress rehearsal that took place here for putting
military in so many of our cities.
And the reaction has been from our mayor, from other regional

(01:12:14):
leaders, from our business community, from our labor
unions, from our black communityleaders, from our immigrant
leaders and interestingly and from our faith leaders who talk
about dignity, community respect, but also had a very

(01:12:36):
working class daily level of everyday life of people saying
this is not the way our neighbors, our cousins, our
family members should be treated.
And I think when you see that awakening, that's the hope of a
mass movement that is going to be necessary to be part of what

(01:13:01):
Stacey so eloquently laid out asthe steps to resist what's going
on. Stacey.
I have. 6 nieces and nephews. Between the ages of. 9 and 19.
They are the first generation tolose civil rights during their
lifetime, since Reconstruction, since Jim Crow.

(01:13:23):
And yet they are the most aggressively optimistic
children. They believe that they are
capable of more because in our family, I'm the first
generation. I'm in the first generation to
be born with full citizenship inthis country.
And my nieces and nephews grew up believing that that would be
their legacy. I'm optimistic because I know

(01:13:43):
they will do the work to make itso, but I'm more excited because
I know we will not stop fightingto make it happen for them.
Thank you for that. Commissioner Kodigal.
Doctor Manuel, Pastor Stacey Abrams, thank you so much for
being here with us today, for the sobering, provocative and
hopeful conversation. Maureen.

(01:14:07):
Yeah. Thank you.
So much. And.
That was just amazing. We could have gone on longer.
Stacey Abrams, I want you back for Tax Policy Part 2.
This is an amazing discussion. Thank you so much, Stacey and
Manuel for being here. Thank you, Commissioner Kotigal,
for setting the stage for us so brilliantly.

(01:14:29):
Thank you, Natalie, for your expert moderation today.
I also want to thank our team here at the Economic
Opportunities Program. It takes a lot of folks to put
these things together. Many thanks to Matt Helmer, Tony
Mastria, Francis Omotivar, Nora Heffernan and our AV team at
Architects for all their work and bringing you today's event.

(01:14:51):
And thank Many thanks to the audience for joining us for your
great questions. Sorry we couldn't get to all of
them. There were so many.
I really appreciate you joining us for this important and timely
conversation. Please complete the survey that
will open up shortly in your browser and stay tuned for
further information about our upcoming events in October and
through the end of the year. Thanks everybody and hope to see

(01:15:12):
you again soon.