Fort Worth suspends DEI initiatives to comply with Trump orders, creates small business program

A split Fort Worth City Council voted Tuesday night to suspend diversity, equity and inclusion-related initiatives in an effort to comply with requirements of the Trump administration and protect millions of dollars the city receives in federal grants.

The 7-4 vote came after about five hours of public comment and debate across the dais. The dissenting votes came from the council’s three Black members — Mia Hall, Chris Nettles and Deborah Peoples — and Elizabeth Beck, who is white. 

Directly after voting for the suspension, council members voted 10-1 to create a small business development program meant to mitigate the impact of removing specific economic incentives for minority- and women-owned businesses. Peoples was the dissenting vote. 

Before their votes, council members heard from 62 speakers, including local civil rights activists, business owners, faith leaders, political leaders and residents. Forty-five people spoke in favor of suspending DEI, and nine spoke against it. It was unclear where other commenters stood on the suspension. 

Speakers against the resolution largely implored the council to maintain the initiatives they feel are essential to creating a better Fort Worth. They argued the issue was bigger than “just DEI,” and that by ending the initiatives, the city is “bending the knee” to President Donald Trump’s directives seeking power. They warned that the suspension would set a dangerous precedent if federal officials were to seek further restrictions on local government and that it would damage the city’s relationships with communities of color. 

Those speaking in favor of dismantling DEI mostly emphasized a desire to see “fiscal responsibility” from the council. Multiple speakers said they couldn’t stomach a potential property tax increase that might be necessary to make up for the loss of federal grants Fort Worth risked losing if DEI programs weren’t cut.

Immediately before voting in favor of the suspension, Mayor Mattie Parker said the vote was “not a ceremonial vote,” and that it was “not the time to virtue signal.” She said she could not in good conscience vote against the suspension and risk losing federal funds. 

“On behalf of the citizens of this city, I am the chair of the board of one of the most well-run (and) managed cities in the entire nation, the fastest growing city in the country with over one million residents. One million residents,” Parker said. “And while I am so proud that we’ve had over 90 people come here tonight to speak or submit comment cards, there are one million people that this dais has to be responsible for.” 

Council members clash over personal values, fiscal responsibility 

Peoples said her vote against the DEI suspension was a vote in support of upholding democracy and against federal government overreach. 

“We must fight till hell freezes over, and then we must learn to fight on the ice,” Peoples said, quoting Vertner Woodson Tandy, a civil rights leader and cofounder of the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity. “Because I believe in democracy and I am willing to fight on the ice, I must vote no.” 

Nettles floated an amendment to the DEI suspension that would have required the council to revisit the topic of DEI within 90 days of a change in circumstances with the federal government that would allow such initiatives.That motion failed. 

Nettles said he couldn’t vote to support the suspension because doing so would compromise his morals. He suggested that Fort Worth raise its tax rate to make up for losing federal funds or sue the Trump administration over his executive order as other cities have done. 

City Manager Jay Chapa said the city would need to raise its tax rate by about four cents to make up for lost funds if the DEI suspension wasn’t approved. Fort Worth has not increased its tax rate since 1995. 

“I am completely astonished and blown out of my mind that I am sitting on this dais with people who are of my same culture, who have not had the same rights that I have had, bending at the knee of a racist, fascist, and I mean ugly man in Washington D.C.,” Nettles said, referring to the council’s two Latino members, Carlos Flores and Jeanette Martinez, who voted in favor of the suspension. 

Multiple residents directly called out Flores and Martinez for not standing with members of the Hispanic and Latino community who spoke against the DEI suspension.

“I choose to fight for those who live paycheck to paycheck who without (federal) assistance would be homeless,” Martinez said.

Flores emphasized the city wasn’t “dismantling DEI,” but suspending it to protect city employees from being legally at risk of being accused of lying on federal grants. 

Council member Macy Hill said her vote in support of the DEI suspension was to preserve essential city services. She said politicizing the vote was a disservice to Fort Worth residents, and she’s “sick of the nonsense.” 

“The vote tonight for me has nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with citizens like you that came out tonight to be fiscally responsible,” Hill said. “Fort Worth is the greatest big city in America because we put our constituents first, and we prioritize services that benefit every corner, every district, every person in the city.” 

The work of the Civil Rights Office and Human Relations Commission that complies with national directives will continue, Assistant City Manager Dana Burghdoff said. She previously told council the city would “administratively revise” any other DEI-related programs to comply with federal directives. 

Fort Worth receives 139 multiyear federal grants for a cumulative $277 million, which helps fund departments including aviation, police, park and recreation, rental assistance and emergency management.

Fort Worth receives about $40.6 million in federal funds annually. A portion of that pays for the salaries of 120 staff members in various city departments, including five staffers in the diversity and inclusion department. Chapa previously said he does not expect any city employees to lose their jobs under the DEI suspension.

Opponents to the resolution call council to defend DEI, supporters call for fiscal responsibility

Jeffery Postell III, who spoke against the DEI suspension, said he was speaking on behalf of his father, who runs a small construction and drywall business “fueled” by the city’s DEI initiatives and support of minority- and women-owned businesses. 

He said the programs helped grow his father’s business from the family’s kitchen table to being an employer of more than 30 people that’s performed more than $20 million of bonded work over the past 10 years. 

“My family would tell you the current program works. It produces and is still needed,” Postell said. “My dad did not feel 400 years of mistreatment of a group of people can be fixed with only 40 or 50 years of limited MWBE programs.”

Mark Fulmer spoke in support of dismantling DEI, calling it a derivative of a “broader, post-modernist, cultural Marxism.” He said the programs ideologically deny the Founding Fathers’ beliefs that all men are created equal by saying people are born victims to oppression because of their race or gender identity. 

“For those of you who insist this funding will be raised by merely raising our tax rate, I detest that socialist Democrat idea of big government at the expense of the citizens. I do not stand for that,” Fulmer said.

Another opponent of the resolution was Karen Johnson, chair of the Fort Worth Human Relations Commission. She said the country should learn from the past, which saw decades of Jim Crow laws and redlining “entrench us in blatant discrimination against all people of color” — redlining she said was still visible where residents live today.

“Without those policies, we go back in time to where only white people received the benefit of the doubt regarding their qualifications,” she said. “And frankly, we are the 11th largest city in this country. We don’t need to go backwards when we can lead Fort Worth and the nation into the future.”

She called the policies “federal overreach on steroids” and a power play by the government in telling Fort Worth to only spend money on its terms.

City lays out small business economic incentive program

Effective Sept. 1, the city’s new, “more robust” small business economic development program will give certain preferences to entities with a certification from the national Small Business Administration, or SBA.

For instance, when a small business bids for city projects costing less than $100,000, the city will count their bid as 5% higher than it is, said Burghdoff, the assistant city manager. For projects of over $100,000, the city will start with a 30% small business utilization goal, among other initiatives. 

The SBA sets standards for the maximum size that a business and its affiliates can be to qualify as a small business. Most manufacturing companies with 500 employees or fewer, and most nonmanufacturing businesses with average annual receipts less than $7.5 million, will qualify as a small business, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

City officials have worked with and will contract the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce as well as the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce to create and maintain the incentive program. 

“This has been a difficult process for all of us, but I want you to know I am energized by the connections we have with the other chambers, working with the Fort Worth chamber and the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber together and the city leaders,” Michelle Green-Ford, president of the Black chamber, told council members. “I am confident that we can move forward with a plan that will move the city forward and develop all of our small businesses.

Ericka Garza, president of the Hispanic chamber, said it will work with the city to match qualified small businesses with contracting opportunities. 

Hall, who voted against the resolution to suspend DEI but for the program’s creation, said it would be necessary to constantly evaluate the small businesses development program and know what success looks like.

She said she wants a “robust cycle” of responsive and proactive evaluation — not just on the merit of the program, but also in how it compares to the incentives the city had before. 

Cecilia Lenzen and Drew Shaw are government accountability reporters for the Fort Worth Report. Contact them at cecilia.lenzen@fortworthreport.org and drew.shaw@fortworthreport.org.  

At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

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