Ned Lamont Creates New CT Office Focused on DEI; hire a leader

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

Mariana Monteiro, who oversaw diversity and inclusion efforts for major corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Otis Elevator and GE, was introduced as the state’s director of capital and opportunity.

“We live in a day and age where, in Washington, DEI is being challenged, to put it mildly, and (there’s) a lot of meritocracy,” Lamont said at a news conference. “I don’t think you have a real meritocracy unless you’re doing outreach.”

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

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

Lamont said the goal of the new office is “to make sure everyone, regardless of background, knows 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 kind of the norm around here.

The new job is based in the governor’s office and was created by an executive order signed by Lamont 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 nationwide job search, the governor’s office said.

Her first task is an assessment of employment practices at the state government level, where most agencies must develop annual affirmative action plans with employment goals that are reviewed by the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunity.

Under state law, agencies should already be engaging in outreach as part of their affirmative action plan.

“There are already some best practices in the state that we want to amplify and collaborate with, and others that we can perhaps copy with industry training, such as outreach to professional organizations that truly host the best and brightest of all the communities. we serve,” said Monteiro.

Lamont said he is less concerned about the precise percentages of race, gender and background represented in the state workforce than he is about making sure everyone has access to the state’s job listings and the state hires from the best pool of workforce possible.

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

In June 2023, the US Supreme Court canceled the affirmative action in higher education, fueling a broader look at DEI policies that gained greater visibility after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd.

Florida is among 20 states that have passed laws either banning or restricting DEI efforts in state governments, mostly focused on state universities.

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

Amazon, Walmart and other major corporations have since made diversity-focused staff cuts, often after being targeted by conservative activists. Three months ago, civil rights groups began to drop out in a national campaign.