Florida Bar Drops Diversity, Inclusion in Anti-DEI Shift (1)

The Florida Bar Board of Governors voted Friday to banish the words “diversity and inclusion” from its organizational policy in the latest anti-DEI push in one of the nation’s largest legal communities.

The bar’s leaders swapped language saying the group “is fully committed to the enhancement of diversity and inclusion within the bar” and a “commitment toward a diverse and inclusive environment with equal access and opportunity for all,” with a statement saying the group is “fully committed to the improvement of legal services” and “an environment that fosters equal access and opportunity for all.”

The move follows the Florida Supreme Court’s January decision eliminating all funding for state bar diversity and inclusion committees, events or programming. That shift means that events the bar could have sponsored for minority groups will now rely more heavily on private funding, putting more responsibility on the shoulders of large and mid-size firms and fundraisers for minority bar organizations, said Harsh Arora, a member of the bar’s terminated “Diversity & Inclusion Committee.”

Groups like the Virgil Hawkins Florida Chapter National Bar Association, an organization for Black attorneys, see the language change as the latest “dismantling” of support for diversity in the practice of law, chapter president Benjamin C. Garcia said.

“These changes risk undermining core principles of equity and fairness that enhance the legal profession’s credibility and ensure our system reflects the communities it serves,” said Garcia, who added that his group will work with law firms, schools, and other organizations to advance inclusive hiring in the legal industry.

The Florida Bar declined to comment on the policy change and the rollback of DEI over the last four years under the conservative Florida Supreme Court. In 2020 a bar Standing Committee On Fairness and Diversity released a statement about how the bar would broaden efforts to combat bias in the legal system. But since then the high court refused to recognize training program credit that had diversity requirements for panels, nixed “fairness and diversity” ethics course credit for judges, and ended “bias elimination” training credit for the broader legal community.

The court has paved “the way for a complete dismantling of all fairness and diversity initiatives in the State Courts System,” Justice Jorge Labarga said in decision last year.

Friday’s language change itself likely won’t have a large impact.

Alterations were necessary after the court’s decision to eliminate state funding for DEI initiatives, and the replacement language affirms that the bar is going to focus on improving the legal system for everyone and is working to make sure no one feels excluded, said Arora, a partner in Nelson Mullins’ Fort Lauderdale office and a participant in the firm’s DEI work.

“My message is that now, more than ever, it’s the responsibility of the firms and the voluntary bars, he said. “Attorneys are going to need to do their part—it’s just that source of funding, and the effort we put in, will be different now.”