Looney, Duff, Winfield Denounce Trump’s Attempt to Roll Back Civil Rights Act

HARTFORD – Today, Senate President Martin Looney (D-New Haven), Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk), and Senator Gary Winfield (D-New Haven), Senate Chair of the Judiciary Committee, released a statement condemning Trump’s Wednesday Executive Order attacking decades of fundamental civil rights law. The Trump administration is attempting to roll back Title VI and Title VII enforcement, which will allow for discrimination in federally funded programs and employment, seeking to deprioritize civil rights laws in housing, lending, and employment, and ordering a review of pending civil rights cases. The Executive Order would undo much of the protections under the Civil Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

“This Executive Order is a shameful assault on the very principles of equality and justice that define our democracy. It attempts to turn back the clock on decades of hard-fought progress, opening the door to sanctioned discrimination in every corner of American life. Disparate-impact liability has played a significant role in ensuring fairness from the workplace to the classroom to the bank. We will not stand by while the federal government dismantles civil rights protections that generations have marched, fought, and died to secure.”