Attack on Our Power and Dignity: What Project 2025 Means for Black Communities

Table of Contents

• Dear Reader, 5
• Executive Summary 6
• What is Project 2025? 7
• Equality Under Fire: Threats to Civil Rights Protections and Equal Opportunity 10
• Project 2025 Will Curtail Black People’s Civil Rights 10
• Preventing the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws by halting the collection of workforce data 10
• Eliminating policies that ensure equal employment opportunities at the federal level 10
• Curtailing civil rights protections, making it harder to identify and remedy discrimination 11
• Weaponizing civil rights enforcement by the EEOC and the DOJ 12
• Importance of Anti-Discrimination Tools 12
• LDF’s Vision for Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity 14
• Threats to Providing Black Students a Safe, Inclusive, and Quality Education 15
• Project 2025 Will Dismantle the Department of Education and Eliminate Civil Rights Protections for All Students, Especially Black Students 15
• Ending the ED’s obligations under federal law to administer student discipline in a nondiscriminatory manner 15
• Eliminating Head Start and universal access to quality early childhood education 16
• Defunding public education and changing student loan policies to privilege wealthier families 17
• Restricting access to inclusive, accurate, and quality instruction 21
• LDF’s Vision for Educational Equity 23
• Risks to Voting Rights, Democracy, and Black Political Power 24
• Project 2025 Will Limit Black Communities’ Political Participation 24
• Politicizing the Census Bureau’s operations to further partisan ends 24
• Manipulating the census count 26
• Adding a citizenship question to the census 28
• Weakening the DOJ’s ability to protect the nation’s multi-racial democracy 29
• LDF’s Vision for Black Political Participation 31
• Counterproductive Public Safety Proposals: Less Accountability for Law Enforcement, More Punishment of Black Communities 33
• Project 2025 Will Weaponize the Department of Justice to Roll Back Public Safety Protections Within Black Communities 33
• Enforcing and expanding a racially discriminatory death penalty 33
• Dismantling law enforcement accountability measures by eliminating consent decrees 36
• Increasing sentencing and pursuing mandatory minimums 37
• Promoting xenophobic policies that increase anti-Black and other hate violence 38
• LDF’s Vision for Public Safety 39
• The Urgent Need to Protect and Expand Equal Access to Housing 41
• Project 2025 Will Limit the Black Community’s Access to Safe and Affordable Housing 41
• Destroying tools essential to combating housing discrimination and delegating housing enforcement to state and local governments 42
• Dismantling HUD’s rental assistance programs 43
• Limiting the Black community’s ability to build intergenerational wealth by eliminating homeownership assistance programs 45
• LDF’s Vision for Fair Housing 47
• Call Out Box: LDF Resources Referenced in Chapter 47
• Health Care at Risk: Further Limiting Black Communities’ Access to Abortion Care 48
• Project 2025 Will Ban Abortions 48
• Restricting access to medication abortions 48
• Denying emergency abortion care in hospitals 49
• Surveilling and collecting data on Black pregnant people seeking abortion care 50
• Negative impacts on health and economic opportunities 51
• LDF’s Vision for Accessible Health Care 53
• Resisting Threats to the Safety and Well-Being of the Planet and its Inhabitants 54
• Project 2025 Will Weaken Black People’s Access to Safe Air, Clean Water, and Climate-Resilient Housing 54
• Reducing federal oversight and enforcement of environmental protections for clean air, land, and water 55
• Call Out Box: The Current Impacts of Environmental Racism on Black Communities 55
• Decreasing the enforcement of environmental justice and civil rights protections 56
• Limiting the monitoring and regulation of harmful pollutants 56
• Exacerbating climate change, which increases the risk of natural disasters that disproportionately impact Black communities 57
• LDF’s Vision for Environmental Justice 58
• Call Out Box: LDF Resources Referenced in This Chapter 58
• Conclusion 59