Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman (R-Queen Creek) filed a bill last Monday to prohibit Arizona from establishing large contracts with private sector entities that require Diversity, Equity and Inclusiveness (DEI) training for their employees.
Hoffman’s SB 1005 would prohibit any “public entity” in Arizona “from requiring or spending public monies on a diversity, equity and inclusion program and allows an employee who is required to participate in the program to bring an action against the public entity,” and government bodies “from entering into a contract with a company that participates in a DEI program,” according to a fact sheet for the bill.
Specific restrictions would prevent any government entity from requiring employees participate in a DEI program, spending taxpayer money on a DEI program, “entering or renewing a contract with a company that participates in a DEI program,” or spending taxpayer money for “services, supplies, information, technology or goods” related to a DEI program.
Hoffman’s legislation would also prohibit governments in Arizona from “advancing or adopting any policy or procedure designed or implemented on the basis of race, sex or color, except as required by federal law” and bar them from “promoting or adopting any theory of unconscious or implicit bias, cultural appropriation, allyship, transgenderism, microaggressions, microinvalidation, group marginalization, anti-racism, systemic oppression, ethnocentrism, structural racism or inequality, social justice, intersectionality, neopronouns, inclusive language, heteronormativity, disparate impact, gender identity or theory, racial or sexual privilege or any related theory as the official position of the public entity.”
The legislation comes after some attributed DEI to the departure of disgraced former Harvard University President Claudine Gay, whose alleged plagiarism drew widespread criticism after she denied the purported rise in antisemitism on the university’s campus in testimony before U.S. Congress.
The fact sheet highlights similar, existing Arizona laws that prevent public entities from entering into contracts costing more than $100,000 with any organization that participates in anti-Israel boycotts of goods and services, and from contracting with any company that relies on forced labor from ethnic Uyghurs in China.
The bill currently has nine co-sponsors, including Senator Justine Wadsack (R-Tucson) and Representatives Joseph Chaplik (R-Scottsdale) and Alex Kolodin (R-Scottsdale).
