Fairness Under Threat: A Call to Upend Project 2025
Are you concerned about Project 2025? Do you want to gain insights on how to defeat it? Ready to fortify and advance the heart of your workplace DEI commitments? Then this article is *for* you!
Imagine a future you long for and want to win—a future where all living beings, including the Earth, belong without exception.
This kind of visioning work was why I created the Imagine Belonging Podcast. I wanted to create a welcoming space, inviting guests to dream with me, without limitation.
This kind of imagination allows new futures to emerge. Igniting the power to imagine increases our ability to upend today’s current conditions & competing future visions.
The Belonging Vision’s Main Competitor
Today’s sobering conditions, along with one particular competing vision, obstruct our ability to activate a vision of a shared belonging society.
What is the Belonging Society Vision’s main competitor? Project 2025.
While I’m sure you have heard of it by now, are you fully aware of how it may impact your life? In this podcast episode, you’ll learn more about what it says and what to do.
Briefly, Project 2025 details a cruel and unconstitutional vision designed to challenge, erode, and eradicate hard-won human and civil rights protections in the United States.
The agenda was authored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank opposed to racial, immigrant, LGBTQ+, gender, reproductive, and disability justice.
The Project’s proposals have shaped the flurry of executive orders released over the first few months of the Trump Administration’s second term.
What Project 2025 Says About DEI
Project 2025 embodies a radical, wasteful, and anti-human agenda, which is already impacting the workforce. When it comes to workplace DEI commitments, it calls for:
Eradicating Federal Programs. Eliminating all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion programming.
Eliminating Chief Diversity Officers. Indefinitely placing essential chief diversity officers (and related positions) on administrative leave.
Establishing Anti-DEI Task Forces. Creating task forces to determine the scope, breadth, and depth of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Shifting Federal Funding Priorities. Divert federal funding for the diversity, equity, and inclusion programming of nonprofits and higher education institutions.
Prohibiting EEO-1 Data Collection. Make it impossible to prove discrimination by prohibiting data collection; evidence used in disparate impact analysis.
Already, some of Project 2025’s recommendations are coming to fruition in the form of the following executive orders:
“Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing”
“Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity”
Several lawsuits are currently challenging the constitutionality of these executive orders, alleging they violate the Constitution, specifically the free speech of employers.
How to Upend Project 2025
Content developed at our Winter Belonging Circle on January 30th was curated to support those ready to take action and defeat the vision behind this nefarious agenda.
During a panel I moderated, Competing Visions: A Call to Upend Project 2025, special guest speakers Joel A. Davis Brown and Jess Pettitt helped participants:
Examine Project 2025’s Impacts. Moving beyond the rhetoric, we delved into the real-world impacts on businesses and their DEI commitments, examining litigation & reputation risks, potential funding cuts, shifting compliance requirements, and the chilling effect these early executive actions informed by Project 2025 are having on our work cultures.
Explore the Impacts of Fear and Silence. We addressed one of Project 2025’s main objectives - to create a climate of fear and silence around DEI. To counter this climate, we encourage discussion about legal protections, the role of leadership in fostering open dialogue, and ways to safeguard employees who advocate for inclusion.
Learn the Value of DEI Data Collection. We highlighted the importance of data collection and key metrics in DEI work and explored the challenges of operating without these measures. We then explored alternative data collection methods, qualitative assessments, and potential impacts on leadership accountability and transparency.
Draft a Fresh Outcomes Narrative. Next, we examined the significance of new narratives, one of which highlights DEI's impact on employee well-being and business performance. We investigated how to frame this narrative around business results, avoiding the inclination to concentrate on social justice discussions alone, with the goal of connecting with a broader audience.
Consider How to Proactively Plan. This question emphasizes proactive planning. It prompts discussion about auditing current DEI policies to reduce litigation risk while balancing the threat of reputation risk, scenario planning for different political outcomes, and building resilience into DEI programs to withstand potential challenges.
The panel's purpose was to support visionary organizations and people leaders to fortify and advance the heart of their DEI work, knowing Project 2025 is targeting it.
Please watch this short reel for some of the highlights from this panel discussion. Then, be sure to subscribe and listen to this episode of Imagine Belonging.
[Image Description: An image of Rhodes Perry hosting Jess Pettitt and Joel A. Davis Brown at the Winter Belong Circle’s panel discussion, Competing Visions: A Call to Upend Project 2025. You can listen to the full conversation on the Imagine Belonging Podcast here, and if you’d like to access the full video, with closed captions, a transcript, a workbook, and even more educational content from the event, get extended access here.]
Need Support? RPC Can Help!
With so much uncertainty on the horizon, it makes sense to connect with a consulting firm like Rhodes Perry Consulting. We are well-positioned to help you:
Assess Litigation & Reputation Risk. Has your organization conducted a legal and reputation risk assessment? If not, RPC can help you fortify and advance the heart of your DEI commitments. Get in touch for a complimentary discovery call.
Learn On-Demand with the Belonging Circle. If you would like extended access to the Winter Belonging Circle, including the Project 2025 full video, transcript, and discussion workbooks, along with the Imagine Belonging Masterclass, visit.
Reboot Your Nervous System. And as always, if you need a nervous system reboot considering today’s current conditions, please be sure to join our Thursday Belonging Practice scheduled at 8 am PT. There you’ll build you your resources to navigate these headwinds while practicing community care. Save your seat here.
[Image Description: A navy background with gold text that reads, "Practice Belonging," with an image of a person meditating with a red heart on their chest, a jumble of chaos above their left shoulder, and an image of planet Earth on the right.]
Your Belonging Coach
Lastly, I know many DEI professionals and folks in adjacent fields are seeking support for career resiliency. If that’s you, consider this belonging coaching offer.
It is designed to help you use the body as a sight for transformation & this particular offer will help you navigate transition under the same, and now new pressures.
Consider scheduling a complimentary discovery call to determine if this offer can help you move in the direction of your career and personal commitments.
Thanks for growing the Belonging Movement!