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The Red Elephant in the Room at AfroTech

At the annual tech conference for Black professionals, all eyes were on AI—but many also braced for the impact of a Trump administration that has promised to kill DEI.

It meant going on offense to ensure the next digital revolution didn’t turn into a “high-tech pathway to discrimination,” said Charlotte Burrows, chair of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in a talk on AI as “the new civil rights frontier.” Project 2025, the 900-page conservative policy agenda Trump is likely to base much of his governing around, takes aim at organizations that employ “racial classifications and quotas” and pledges to rescind an executive order that calls for federal contractors to guarantee equal opportunity. As I took in the extravaganza of the exhibition floor, with its large swooping signs in every direction, I thought back to my first day in Houston when a Microsoft recruiter joked that I shouldn’t tell anyone what he did, worried they might overwhelm him with resumes and questions about openings at the company.

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