This comprehensive report analyzes the potential impacts of "Project 2025," a radical political blueprint created by the Heritage Foundation, on Black communities in the United States. The report dissects Project 2025’s proposals, which aim to expand executive power and reduce federal protections in seven key areas: civil rights, education, political participation, criminal justice, housing, reproductive rights, and environmental protections. The document emphasizes how the dismantling of federal protections in these areas would disproportionately harm Black communities, curtail civil rights, and exacerbate inequality. It offers a clear contrast between Project 2025’s agenda and the Thurgood Marshall Institute’s vision of a thriving, equitable, multi-racial democracy.
Authors
- Pages
- 78
- Published in
- United States of America
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
