File: Mayor Keith Wilson at a Portland City Council meeting on Feb. 5, 2025, Portland, Ore.
Anna Lueck for OPB
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson has ordered city bureaus to change the wording for city programs that benefit minority groups to comply with President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI directives.
“This means that City programs and services cannot give preference to groups with ‘protected-class status’ based on characteristics such as race or gender,” wrote Wilson in a Thursday letter explaining his executive order.
The move marks the city’s most significant policy shift in response to Trump’s second term agenda.
Wilson noted that Trump has threatened to withhold federal funding from cities that don’t make these changes. Portland relies on about $350 million in federal grant funding for different programs, the majority of which impact city housing and transportation projects. These grants make up about 4% of the city’s annual budget.
“Although this decision has been challenging, it is in the best interest of Portlanders,” he continued. “Losing federal funding would harm the very people that many of our city programs are designed to help.”
Wilson’s first-ever executive order is a direct response to an executive order signed by Trump in January, which threatened to withhold federal grant dollars from cities with policies that violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964. According to the current U.S. Department of Justice, that could include any policies that attempt to prioritize certain races and genders above others.
According to the mayor’s office, that definition could include roughly 75 city programs and policies. For example, it could impact Portland programs that prioritize contracts with minority-owned businesses or a policy that requires the city interview qualified women and people of color when recruiting bureau directors. Some councilors have also raised concerns that it could also apply to the Portland Clean Energy Fund, a voter-approved sales tax on large companies that has generated more than a billion dollars for programs that address climate changes — including job training and grants for marginalized communities impacted by climate change.
In a press release announcing the order, a spokesperson for Wilson said that some of these changes will be pretty straightforward, like “updating language to clarify that a program or resource is available to all Portlanders.”
The release stressed that the order doesn’t eliminate “most” of the city’s diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. It’s unclear which of these initiatives might be eliminated.
City Administrator Michael Jordan has been tasked with overseeing the policy language change across city departments. That work will begin in the coming weeks.
The city is under a time crunch: By August, it needs to sign paperwork with the federal government to unlock $31 million in anticipated federal grants. By signing those documents, the city confirms that no city policies violate anti-discrimination laws.
The city has tried to fight this financial threat in the courts. In May, Portland joined a lawsuit against the administration’s restrictions to grant funding based on non-compliance with Trumps’ orders on DEI, immigration and transgender rights. But that challenge remains tied up in court as grant deadlines pass.
There are risks to the city accepting federal funding without changing city policies on race and gender. In May, the DOJ created a new program to investigate whether recipients of federal funds “knowingly violate federal civil rights laws.” If a city is found in violation, the official who signed off on the grant agreement could face jail time.
Some city councilors have expressed worry about agreeing to Trump’s order. When the issue first arose earlier this month, Councilor Angelita Morillo said she wasn’t yet sure how Portland should respond — but she knew it could set a precedent that may be hard to reverse.
“It’s a frog in boiling water situation,” Morillo told OPB on July 15. “Where we’ll get more and more accustomed to them stripping our vulnerable community members of their rights. At a certain point, we do have to ask, ‘How much more are we willing to concede?’”
Councilor Steve Novick, who previously worked as a DOJ attorney, said that Wilson made the right move.
“We are continuing to fight this administration in the courts where that is a viable option,” Novick wrote in an email to OPB. “We are not preemptively capitulating on issues where the law is on our side.”
Council President Elana Pirtle-Guiney called Wilson’s order a “necessary” choice.
“I want to ensure our community partners continue to receive funding for critical programs, while also continuing to make policies guided by our communities values,” Pirtle-Guiney wrote. “The mayor’s order allows us to do both.”
Sandy Chung, director of the ACLU of Oregon, said she talked with Wilson about how to address these funding threats earlier this month. Chung said she believes Wilson’s executive order is the right approach.
“I don’t see it as a capitulation,” Chung said. “Jurisdictions should have processes for periodically reviewing programs to make sure they are in line with federal statutes, like the Civil Rights Act. I don’t see this as something that should be specific to the Trump administration. The city always has this obligation.”
Chung said she doesn’t think the order signals any disinvestment from Wilson in the city’s equity and diversity goals.
Portland is just the latest local government to make policy changes related to equity and diversity in order to keep receiving federal money.
In January, Clackamas County eliminated its equity and inclusion office. In February, the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners voted to dissolve its diversity, equity, inclusion and access committee. In April, the Port of Portland rescinded its social equity policies. And last week, the Washington County Board of Commissioners voted to revise its equity policies to keep getting federal money.
In his letter, Wilson tried to distance Portland from these other jurisdictions.
“Some jurisdictions and organizations have gone so far as to purge some, or all, of their references to diversity, equity, and inclusion, including eliminating DEI offices and equity-focused jobs,” he wrote. “We think this goes too far. We believe in our values and remain committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and our offices and employees who support this work. ”
Some local governments have gone further to push back. Earlier this month, the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners joined Portland as a plaintiff in the lawsuit against the Trump administration over threats to withhold federal funding based on equity policies. But unlike Portland, it has decided not to change any of its equity-related language in the interim.
And, within an hour of Wilson sharing news of his order Thursday, Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell announced that Seattle would also be suing the Trump administration over the constitutionality of Trump’s executive orders restricting DEI programs.
Portland is opposing the administration’s policies in other ways. In February, the city joined a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s threat to pull federal funding from jurisdictions with sanctuary laws that limit cooperation with immigration officials.
