Lauri F. Rasnick, Member of the Firm in the Employment, Labor & Workforce Management practice, in the firm’s New York office, was quoted in BISNOW, in “The Quiet Retreat: How White House Pressure Is Rewriting CRE's DEI Playbook,” by Ryan Wangman, Matt Wasielewski, and Emily Wishingrad. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
It’s a precarious time to publicly support diversity, equity and inclusion in commercial real estate.
President Donald Trump’s administration has made rooting out DEI a mainstay of its early actions. The CRE industry has taken note, slashing and burning its messaging around DEI to avoid attracting not only the attention of conservative critics but also federal prosecutors, who have made clear that DEI initiatives could run afoul of their interpretation of the law.
“For many, many years, those types of words — DEI and diversity — were benign,” said Lauri Rasnick, a partner at Epstein Becker Green who specializes in DEI compliance.
That has now changed with the Trump administration’s focus on the programs.
“A number of employers don't see a benefit of maintaining that type of language on their website if it's perhaps only going to be used against them,” she added. …
