Eliminating DEI at state level draws plenty of pushback
On Capitol Hill, U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, picked up on Trump's unsubstantiated claim that DEI may have factored in the midair collision that killed 67 people near Washington's Ronald Reagan National Airport on Jan. 30.
"What I think you're going to find is there were a lot of qualified White men that they were not hiring because they were holding spots for DEI hires," Marshall said.
Local officials in Concord and Manchester have had to defend their own DEI initiatives against critics who charge they are a waste of money and seek to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
At the State House, the legislation (HB 392) from Rep. Mike Belcher, R-Wakefield, would dismantle the Office of Health Equity in the state Department of Health and Human Services, the civil rights and environmental justice functions in the Department of Environmental Services and the Governor's Council on Diversity and Inclusion.
Belcher charged that when vaccines and antibodies were in short supply at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, state officials set aside supplies for minority groups in the state based on "skin color."
"These programs ought to be looked at as both unlawful and unconstitutional," Belcher told the House Health, Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee. "These concepts have been roundly rejected by the American people and the voters of New Hampshire. They are punitive, discriminatory and divisive."
Yet over a 2 1/2 -hour public hearing, every speaker following Belcher warned that getting rid of these programs would cost the state nearly $100 million in federal support while cutting off a lifeline of services that legal refugees, the disabled and low-income residents depend upon for survival.
Health impact
Belcher was surely not going to sway one member of this key House committee, two-term Rep. Trinidad Telez, D-Manchester.
For a decade including the onset of COVID, Telez was the director of the Office of Health Equity. Telez told Belcher the office's work was upheld twice in court against lawsuits that charged it had practiced bias in its delivery of care.
"Do you have any evidence that discrimination exists here in New Hampshire?" Telez asked Belcher. "There can be no quality of care if we fail to address equity."
There were 30 who endorsed Belcher's bill online while 2,820 opposed it.
Isadora Rodriguez-Legendre is executive director of the New Hampshire Council on Developmental Disabilities.
"We don't want to blanketly eliminate anything just because it has the word equity and justice in it," Rodriguez-Legendre said. "People with disabilities have a significant need for coordination of care and those needs can only be met by equitable access to services and information."
During the pandemic, the Office of Health Equity deployed mobile vans that brought vaccines and other health services to rural parts of the state and urban neighborhoods where low-income residents lacked transportation to make a doctor or hospital visit.
"For example: Are patients able to access appointments? Do they have transportation? Do they need hearing or vision accommodation? Can they follow up with medications, physical and behavioral health therapy, and prescriptions?" asked Cathy Stratton, CEO of the New Hampshire Medical Society.
Andrew Loehrer, a surgical oncologist at Dartmouth Health, said the office's leadership led to the elimination of disparities in access to care for advance-stage cancer, research that will soon be published nationally.
"Health equity is not some straw man that affects everybody else; it impacts all by ensuring that every single individual in our state has access to high-quality care," Loehrer said.
Adam Crepeau, assistant commissioner with the Department of Environmental Services, said with all its federal grants, the department must prove it complies with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
"This would put significant federal funds in jeopardy," Crepeau said, identifying up to $90 million in federal aid at risk.
Heidi Trimarco, a lawyer with the Conservation Law Foundation, was more blunt.
"This will take a wrecking ball to DES," Trimarco said, pointing out the impact is 25% of its entire budget.
Office will stay in budget
Gov. Kelly Ayotte said she hasn't read Belcher's bill and "has not thought about re-creating" the diversity council former Gov. Chris Sununu formed by executive order in 2017. Sununu eliminated the council in December before leaving office.
She told reporters that the two-year state budget proposal she will present on Thursday will include continuing the Office of Health Equity.
"When it comes to diversity, equity, we want everyone to feel they can be engaged; that's a basic premise of who we are," Ayotte said.
The Office of Health Equity was established in 1999 as the Office of Minority Health; its name was changed in 2016. Eliminating it would save $100,000 in state taxpayer funds and forfeit $69,000 in federal grants.
The office runs the Refugee Resettlement Program, which coordinates employment, language skills and cultural assimilation to help those from other countries legally coming here, often to escape oppression.
Health and Human Services Associate Commissioner Ann Landry said Belcher's bill would cause the program to lose state coordination, which ensures refugees get access to all services from food stamp and welfare assistance to job training and English as a second language classes.
Richard Minard of Bow runs Building Community in New Hampshire and his seven-person staff includes former residents of Afghanistan, Ukraine, Haiti and Republic of Congo.
"Together they speak 17 languages," Minard testified. "I don't know when or how 'equity' became a dirty word. To me, the promise of liberty and justice for all Americans is synonymous with the promise of equity and inclusion."
State Rep. Jess Edwards, R-Auburn, chairs the House Finance Committee working group with oversight of the entire Health and Human Services budget. Over six years, Edwards, a fiscal conservative, said he eyed these programs "cynically" and spent more time than any other legislator scrutinizing their work.
"I would say that this is a program that, by and large, most of us can agree to," Edwards said. "We aren't trying to put the thumb on the scale to provide superior access to a select group; it's to provide everyone the same access and to me, that's a goal the state of New Hampshire should strive to meet."
klandrigan@unionleader.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
44 minutes ago
- Yahoo
UN investigator says US sanctions over her criticism of Israel will seriously impact her life
Italy Israel Palestinians ROME (AP) — An independent U.N. investigator and outspoken critic of Israel's policies in Gaza says that the sanctions recently imposed on her by the Trump administration will have serious impacts on her life and work. Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is a member of a group of experts chosen by the 47-member U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. She is tasked with probing human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories and has been vocal about what she has described as the 'genocide' by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. Both Israel and the United States, which provides military support to its close ally, have strongly denied that accusation. Washington has decried what it called a 'campaign of political and economic warfare' against the U.S. and Israel, and earlier this month imposed sanctions on Albanese, following an unsuccessful U.S. pressure campaign to force the international body to remove her from her post. 'It's very serious to be on the list of the people sanctioned by the U.S.,' Albanese told The Associated Press in Rome on Tuesday, adding that individuals sanctioned by the U.S. cannot have financial interactions or credit cards with any American bank. When used in 'a political way," she said the sanctions 'are harmful, dangerous.' 'My daughter is American. I've been living in the U.S. and I have some assets there. So of course, it's going to harm me,' Albanese said. 'What can I do? I did everything I did in good faith, and knowing that, my commitment to justice is more important than personal interests.' The sanctions have not dissuaded Albanese from her work — or her viewpoints — and in July, she published a new report, focused on what she defines as 'Israel's genocidal economy' in Palestinian territories. 'There's an entire ecosystem that has allowed Israel's occupation to thrive. And then it has also morphed into an economy of genocide,' she said. In the conclusion of the report, Albanese calls for sanctions against Israel and prosecution of 'architects, executors and profiteers of this genocide.' Albanese noted a recent shift in perceptions in Europe and around the world following an outcry over images of emaciated children in Gaza and reports of dozens of hunger-related deaths after nearly 22 months of war. 'It's shocking," she said. "I don't think that there are words left to describe what's happening to the Palestinian people.' The war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 people captive. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed over 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians but says more than half the dead are women and children. Nearly 21 months into the conflict that displaced the vast majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people, the United Nations says hunger is rampant after a lengthy Israeli blockade on food entering the territory and medical care is extremely limited. Solve the daily Crossword
an hour ago
Trump says Epstein 'stole' young women from Mar-a-Lago spa, including Virginia Giuffre
WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Jeffrey Epstein 'stole' young women who worked for the spa at Mar-a-Lago, the latest evolution in his description of how their highly scrutinized relationship ended years ago. One of the women, he acknowledged, was Virginia Giuffre, who was among Epstein's most well-known sex trafficking accusers. Trump's comments expanded on remarks he had made a day earlier, when he said he had banned Epstein from his private club in Florida two decades ago because his one-time friend 'stole people that worked for me.' At the time, he did not make clear who those workers were. The Republican president has faced an outcry over his administration's refusal to release more records about Epstein after promises of transparency, a rare example of strain within Trump's tightly controlled political coalition. Trump has attempted to tamp down questions about the case, expressing annoyance that people are still talking about it six years after Epstein died by suicide while awaiting trial, even though some of his own allies have promoted conspiracy theories about it. Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein's imprisoned former girlfriend, was recently interviewed inside a Florida courthouse by the Justice Department's No. 2 official, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, though officials have not publicly disclosed what she said. Her lawyers said Tuesday that she's willing to answer more questions from Congress if she is granted immunity from future prosecution for her testimony and if lawmakers agree to satisfy other conditions. Aboard Air Force One while returning from Scotland, Trump said he was upset that Epstein was 'taking people who worked for me.' The women, he said, were 'taken out of the spa, hired by him — in other words, gone.' 'I said, listen, we don't want you taking our people,' Trump said. When it happened again, Trump said he banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago. Asked if Giuffre was one of the employees poached by Epstein, he demurred but then said 'he stole her.' The White House originally said Trump banned Epstein from Mar-a-Lago because he was acting like a 'creep.' Giuffre died by suicide earlier this year. She claimed that Maxwell spotted her working as a spa attendant at Mar-a-Lago in 2000, when she was a teenager, and hired her as Epstein's masseuse, which led to sexual abuse. Although Giuffre's allegations did not become part of criminal prosecutions against Epstein, she is central to conspiracy theories about the case. She accused Epstein of pressuring her into having sex with powerful men. Maxwell, who has denied Giuffre's allegations, is serving a 20-year-prison sentence in a Florida federal prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls. A spokeswoman for the House Oversight Committee, which requested the interview with Maxwell, said the panel would not consider granting the immunity she requested. The potential interview is part of a frenzied, renewed interest in the Epstein saga following the Justice Department's statement earlier this month that it would not be releasing any additional records from the investigation, an abrupt announcement that stunned online sleuths, conspiracy theorists and elements of Trump's political base who had been hoping to find proof of a government coverup. Since then, the Trump administration has sought to present itself as promoting transparency, with the department urging courts to unseal grand jury transcripts from the sex-trafficking investigations. A judge in Florida last week rejected the request, though similar requests are pending in New York. In a letter Tuesday, Maxwell's attorneys said that though their initial instinct was for Maxwell to invoke her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, they are open to having her cooperate provided that lawmakers satisfy their request for immunity and other conditions. But the Oversight Committee seemed to reject that offer outright. 'The Oversight Committee will respond to Ms. Maxwell's attorney soon, but it will not consider granting congressional immunity for her testimony," a spokesperson said. Separately, Maxwell's attorneys have urged the Supreme Court to review her conviction, saying she did not receive a fair trial. They also say that one way she would testify 'openly and honestly, in public,' is in the event of a pardon by Trump, who has told reporters that such a move is within his rights but that he has not been not asked to do it. 'She welcomes the opportunity to share the truth and to dispel the many misconceptions and misstatements that have plagued this case from the beginning,' the lawyers said.
Business Wire
an hour ago
- Business Wire
Veolia Heads a Groundbreaking Wastewater Epidemiological Surveillance Across Europe
PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News: Veolia (PARIS:VIE), the world leader in water technologies, is at the helm of a groundbreaking European epidemiological surveillance program that leverages wastewater as a real-time health indicator. The goal: detect emerging threats early and protect urban populations across the continent. Veolia will oversee the monitoring aspect of this three-year program and will analyze up to 500 wastewater samples collected from European cities in its laboratories in Spain. Each sample will undergo more than 500 in-depth analyses, targeting a wide range of pollutants, viruses, bacteria, and drug residues. This initiative is aligned with the revised European directive on wastewater treatment, which formally embeds epidemiological surveillance as a pillar of public health. It is also part of the European 'One Health' strategy, which will enable the analysis of collective behavior, the assessment of the impact of public policies, and the identification of new threats, while strengthening Europe's health sovereignty. This principle was recently reiterated in the European Strategy for Water Resilience. Estelle Brachlianoff, CEO of Veolia said: 'Being a pioneer means anticipating tomorrow's challenges, and that's exactly what we're doing here, by transforming wastewater into an early warning tool on a European scale. This project is a concrete embodiment of our GreenUp strategic plan: our environmental solutions are also solutions for the health of citizens and the resilience of European territories. We are delighted to be able to bring the Group's expertise in water treatment and environmental health to the European Union, and to pave the way for a more connected, intelligent, and preventive public health system.' The project is led by Veolia, in partnership with the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council), Cetaqua (Veolia Water Technology Center), and the University of Santiago de Compostela. It is based on more than ten years of field experience in wastewater monitoring in Madrid, Barcelona, and Seville, covering nearly a third of the Spanish population. Daniel Tugues, CEO of Veolia Spain, said: 'The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed the untapped potential of wastewater for public health monitoring. This project puts that learning into practice on a large scale. We are very proud that the expertise of our teams is recognized at the European level. Thanks to this project, Spain is at the forefront of a new approach to environmental health, combining scientific rigor, technological innovation, and a commitment to the common good.' ABOUT VEOLIA Veolia group aims to become the benchmark company for ecological transformation. Present on five continents with 215,000 employees, the Group designs and deploys useful, practical solutions for the management of water, waste and energy that are contributing to a radical turnaround of the current situation. Through its three complementary activities, Veolia helps to develop access to resources, to preserve available resources and to renew them. In 2024, the Veolia group provided 111 million inhabitants with drinking water and 98 million with sanitation, produced 42 million megawatt hours of energy and treated 65 million tonnes of waste. Veolia Environnement (Paris Euronext: VIE) achieved consolidated revenue of 44.7 billion euros in 2024.
