Culture and Social Issues

Major City Mandates ‘Racial Equity’ Training For City Employees

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Democratic Mayor Eric Adams of New York mandated all city employees complete a “racial equity” training before a March 6 deadline, Fox News reported.

The training emphasizes the importance of recognizing “racial equity” in the workplace, according to Fox News, which obtained a copy of the material. It reportedly teaches employees that race is a social construct and has no scientific basis.

“Race has no genetic or scientific basis. It is a social construct created to classify people on the arbitrary basis of skin color and other physical features,” the training reportedly read. “Despite this, race has a very real impact on people’s lives. This is because our society has used race to establish and justify systems of power, privilege, exclusion and oppression.”

The training also reportedly distinguishes between two types of racism including “institutional racism,” defined as “policies, practices, patterns and structures within public and private institutions that impose oppressive or otherwise negative conditions on identifiable groups on the basis of race or ethnicity,” and structural/systemic racism, defined as “racism that occurs across multiple institutions and is integrated into politics, culture and other aspects of life.”

The training advised employers to implement “antiracism training,” establish “safe spaces” to discuss race and acknowledge any “unconscious bias” that could result in a “racist work environment,” Fox News reported.

Unconscious bias, also referred to as implicit bias, was defined as unintentional assessments about people or things.

A source familiar with the training told Fox News that the training “contradicted… [the idea that] we should treat everybody equally” because it trains employees to see people through “a particular lens.”

“I do not agree with what they want us to do as city employees. The [racial equity training] leads me to believe that they want the contracts with the city and the hiring from the city being looked at through this lens,” the source reportedly said. “And that’s what I think is really unfair. It goes against their [stated claims]… that everybody should be treated equally.”

The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.