New York City Employees Required to Participate in Racial Equity Training

New York City employees are now required to participate in, and complete, racial equity training. The racial equity training is to be completed by all employees, including seniors and their subordinates. The racial equity training has to be completed by March 6th.

A memo from the Mayor’s Office gives an idea of what the racial equity training entails. It says the racial equity training will teach all employees the importance of racial equity in the workplace.

“Race has no genetic or scientific basis,” the memo continued. “It is a social construct created to classify people on the arbitrary basis of skin color and other physical features. 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 racial equity training requires specific measures to be put in place that promote antiracism and create a conducive space where matters of race and bias can be discussed. The racial equity training will teach employees about matters such as institutional and systemic racism.

However, it is alleged that some city employees do not agree with the content of the racial equity training. “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. And that’s what I think is really unfair. It goes against their [stated claims] … that everybody should be treated equally,” a city employee allegedly told Fox News Digital. Fox News likened the racial equity training to a form of Critical Race Theory, a claim City Hall denied.

“Fox News irresponsibly misreported this story without ever even coming to us asking if this was true. In reality, for years, city employees have completed EEO and Diversity & Inclusion training, and the ‘Everybody Matters: EEO and Diversity & Inclusion Training’ has nothing to do with Critical Race Theory,” City Hall said in a statement. “Employees have been completing this training every two years, and trainings like these ensure that the city workplace remains a welcoming and fair environment for all New Yorkers.”