Summary:
- The National Urban League’s annual “State of Black America” report detailed multiple threats to the progress made by African Americans since its founding.
- Here in North Carolina, we’ve seen anti-DEI bills pass through the legislature, and funding for education has been conditioned on compliance with new federal requirements.
- There have been efforts to fight against the rollbacks of progress, but it remains to be seen if they will prevail.
As Supreme Court rulings, executive orders and congressional legislation change how Americans navigate society, the National Urban League announced its 49th “State of Black America” Report.
NUL President and CEO Marc Morial said that recent political developments have placed Black America in a state of emergency.
“This is the chilling reality we confront in 2025,” Morial wrote in the executive summary. “A year that has revealed, in stark terms, the lengths to which some will go to halt the progress of Black America.”
While the report listed the national implications, many of the attacks noted in NUL’s summary made their way to North Carolina. Through attacks on federal funding, academic freedom, diversity, equity, and inclusion, North Carolina faces similar barriers to a “just America.”
What is the National Urban League?
With its headquarters in New York City, the NUL was founded in 1910. While its original goal was to aid Black Americans during the Great Migration, it has grown into an urban advocacy organization that promotes self-reliance, parity, power and justice for minorities. Spanning 92 affiliates, the NUL currently serves 300 communities, with chapters in 37 states and the District of Columbia.
The organization doesn’t endorse candidates, but it does insert itself in public policy. Their work included supporting the Affordable Care Act, Affirmative Action and the prosecution of President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 Insurrection.
The NUL also annually publishes a “State of Black America” report. Since former NUL President Vernon Jordan announced the first report in 1976, the document has sought to analyze the daily lives of Black Americans and promote change.
This year’s report outlines how some fringe right-wing beliefs became policy, threatening to reverse the progress Black America has made since the Civil Rights Movement.
The Hurdles NC Face
Following the 2020 mass protests in response to the murder of George Floyd, far-right activists began to vilify anti-discrimination initiatives. Claiming that policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion discriminated against white people, these activists were eventually able to see their fringe beliefs into national policy through a process outlined in the report as “the backlash pipeline.”
After developing in right-wing echo chambers, these ideas would be amplified by far-right media organizations. One such organization was Fox News, which, according to the NUL and Media Matters, aired more than 1,900 segments attacking Critical Race Theory since 2020.
After normalizing these beliefs, far-right legal organizations mobilized, filing lawsuits and influencing elected officials who could evolve their fringe ideas into policy.
We’ve seen the late stages of this pipeline here in North Carolina. In recent months, the General Assembly passed Senate Bills 227, 558 and House Bill 171. They aimed to ban DEI in government agencies and schools, arguing for a return to “merit-based” decision-making.
Realizing the harm these bills would have on students, Governor Josh Stein vetoed the three bills. Now, a three-fifths majority is needed in the House and Senate to overrule the vetoes. While Republicans have that supermajority in the Senate, they are one vote short in the House, so if all Democrats show up and none switch, the vetoes should stand.
The loss of federal funding is also sowing chaos across the state. If North Carolina doesn’t comply with orders from the Department of Education, the state stands to lose more than a billion dollars that would go to employment, training and educational quality. As of June, the federal funding that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill received has decreased by $83 million, according to Bloomberg News.
DEI positions at predominantly white institutions and historically Black colleges and universities are also being terminated. Since keeping the positions as they are violates the new policies, roles throughout North Carolina are becoming restructured, if not outright removed. Approximately 59 jobs have been eliminated in the UNC system, according to The Assembly. Another 131 have been restructured into a different role.
Maintaining funding isn’t the only issue North Carolina schools must navigate. Specific classes in public schools that could be deemed divisive will be on the chopping block. At the university level, general-education and major-specific course requirements are pending review.
According to a Feb. 5 memorandum, the UNC Board of Trustees ordered all course requirements related to diversity, equity, inclusion, or the UNC System’s own equality policy suspended and converted into general electives since these courses could make the UNC system noncompliant with Trump’s Jan. 21 executive order 14173, threatening its federal funding.
With the death of Affirmative Action lingering in the background, political actors threaten a multicultural North Carolina by weaponizing DEI, limiting job growth and withholding federal resources.
What’s Next
As additional hurdles mount against Black America, the report also highlights the acts of resistance. The NAACP sued the Trump Administration for its executive order targeting the Department of Education, a federal agency that oversees civil rights cases in education. The NUL is also suing the administration, arguing that the orders and elimination of programs limit equity in classrooms.
In North Carolina, Democratic officials in education, led by Superintendent Mo Green, continue to question the legality of the federal executive orders. And Gov. Stein’s three vetoes are currently in limbo, awaiting votes on the floor.
If the House and Senate fail to secure enough votes to overrule the vetoes, the bills never become law. Though refusal to remove DEI programs still could impact the federal funding North Carolina expects from the Trump Administration. If they succeed, the policies will immediately be implemented. DEI programs, classes and jobs that were recently restructured and under review, could be terminated outright.
As the future is uncertain, one guarantee is that civil rights organizers in North Carolina and beyond will continue to resist. In the webinar announcing the report, NUL President Morial was clear that legal and non-violent resistance will continue.
“We’re resisting dividing America,” he said, “resisting a country that cares for the few and not the many.”
