Threat to women and minorities’s financial independence

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The Trump Administration’s new executive order has raised concerns about women’s future financial independence.

President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) named “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy” earlier this week. The recent signing of this order is raising concerns for women's financial independence, among other civil rights issues.

The reasoning behind the new EO is to create a “colorblind” society. Many believe that this is a very controversial and incorrect statement. The National Center for Learning Disabilities says, “In conjunction with the EO, ‘Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy,’ encouraging a colorblind society is fundamentally flawed. It fails to recognize our country’s history of systemic racism and ableism, attempting to reverse decades of progress addressing disparities that students of color and students with disabilities face.”

One aim is to examine the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). The ECOA was implemented to “prevent lenders from discriminating against women based on marital status,” according to Newsweek. Due to this, women could potentially need a male to co-sign on new banking endeavors. This order is the most recent EO that could potentially change the way the Civil Rights Act will be enforced.

Article VII of the Civil Rights Act states that you cannot discriminate against employees or hire a candidate based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The new EO directly opposes this clause. In the EO, according to The Hill, Trump states, “Because of disparate-impact liability, employers cannot act in the best interests of the job applicant, the employer, and the American public.”

Trump stated, according to Newsweek, "[Disparate-impact liability] not only undermines our national values, but also runs contrary to equal protection under the law and, therefore, violates our Constitution." Signing an EO does not hold the same weight as adding a law. This order could still hold significance if agencies decide to follow it. Congress is the only system with the power to change or add laws, and this order has not been taken further than just being an Executive Order currently.

With the new EO, agencies will now need to reevaluate current lawsuits and policies that align with “disparate impact claims,” as stated by The Hill.  President Trump would also like to see these agencies working alongside the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to reimagine the interpretation of Article VII.

The president and CEO of the National Women's Law Center, Fatima Goss Graves, states, as per The Hill, “This order is part of Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to dismantle our freedoms and roll back our rights…He hates that civil rights laws give us the power to stand up to bullies like him…But a president does not have the power to take away core civil rights protections from the people of this country with a flick of his wrist,”

The senior vice president of Structural Reform and Governance at the Center for American Progress, Ben Olinsky, said, according to Newsweek, “A recognition that you could have certain hiring practices that, while not clearly discriminatory in intent...may have a disproportionate impact on a particular protected class. It could be where you advertise, for example, around employment listings. It could get at certain kinds of redlining practices."

Overall, this new Executive Order can potentially bring significant change to long-standing legislation, like the Civil Rights Act.