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December 13, 2024

Amid anti-DEI trend in politics and corporate America, Lamont launches CT Office of Equity and Opportunity

MARK PAZNIOKAS / CTMIRROR.ORG Mariana Monteiro is introduced as the chief equity and opportunity officer by Gov. Ned Lamont.
By Mark Pazniokas, CT Mirror

Gov. Ned Lamont pushed against an anti-diversity, equity and inclusion trend in politics and corporate America on Thursday by highlighting the hiring of the first leader of the new Connecticut Office of Equity and Opportunity.

Mariana Monteiro, who has overseen diversity and inclusion efforts for major corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Otis Elevator and GE, was introduced as the state’s chief equity and opportunity officer.

“We live in a day and age where, down in Washington, DEI is being challenged, to put it mildly, and [there’s] a lot of talk about meritocracy,” Lamont said at a press conference. “I don’t think you have a real meritocracy unless you do outreach.”

Elon Musk, the billionaire who has the ear of President-elect Donald J. Trump and is tasked with slashing the size of the federal workforce, equates DEI policies as a new form of discrimination, not outreach.

“DEI must DIE,” Musk wrote on social media a year ago. He called diversity, equity and inclusion “propaganda words for racism, sexism and other -isms.”

Lamont said the goal of the new office is to “make sure everybody, regardless of background, knows that they have an opportunity to serve this state. And you have to do some outreach. You just can’t round up the usual suspects, which is sort of the norm around here.”

The new job is based in the office of the governor and was created by an executive order Lamont signed six months ago. 

Monteiro, 55, who will be paid $175,000 annually from existing funds in the governor’s office, began work Monday. She was hired after a national job search, the governor’s office said.

Her first task is an assessment of hiring practices across state government, where most agencies are required to draft annual affirmative action plans with hiring goals that are reviewed by the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. 

Under state law, the agencies are already supposed to be engaging in outreach as part of their affirmative action plan.

“There’s some good practices already in the state that we want to amplify and collaborate with, and some others that we may perhaps copy with prep from the industry, such as outreach to professional organizations that really host the best and the brightest of all the communities we serve,” Monteiro said.

Lamont said he was less concerned about precise percentages of race, gender and backgrounds represented in the state workforce than ensuring everyone has access to state job listings and state is hiring from the best possible labor pool.

“I don’t think in terms of percentages,” Lamont said. “I think in terms of outreach and making sure that everybody knows there’s a job here for them, and we can do that and give everybody that equal shot. I look at state government, I look at our commissioners, I look at our state police, and we are reflecting the diversity that makes Connecticut special.”

In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in higher education, fueling a broader look at DEI policies that had taken on higher visibility after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020.

Florida is among an estimated 20 states that have passed laws either barring or restricting DEI efforts in state governments, largely focused on state universities. 

In signing an anti-DEI bill in 2023, when he was preparing a run for president, Gov. Ron DeSantis said, “This bill says the whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in the state of Florida.”

Amazon, Walmart and other major corporations have since made cuts in staffing focused on diversity, often after being targeted by conservative activists. Three months ago, civil rights groups began pushing back in a national campaign.

The conservative Heritage Foundation, meanwhile, reported last month that while corporations have cut DEI staff and removed DEI statements from their websites, “nearly all Fortune 500 companies still list commitments to the DEI ideology on their websites.”

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