The Chronicle of Philanthropy: Funders Step In to Help Nonprofits Facing Legal Threats Over DEI
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on February 13, 2026.
Free legal help is essential because the game plan of DEI opponents is to bleed progressive nonprofits dry, said Keith Thirion, Alliance for Justice’s interim co-president.
“The bigger goal is to get nonprofits so focused on defending against each and every one of those attacks that they’re no longer able to fulfill their mission,” he said. “Every penny that goes there is a penny less that goes towards fulfilling their mission.”
Some foundations and nonprofits, acting on the advice of their lawyers, have minimized references to race on their websites and recast their programs as race neutral. For nonprofits that view consideration of race and diversity as central to their calling, the Alliance for Justice has created a program, AFJ Law, which in the coming months plans to offer lawyers to provide free legal representation.
“You can have legal advice that is ‘stay quiet, keep your head down, scrub your website,’ and all of that,” said Deepa Padmanabha, the program’s director. “AFJ law is really about understanding the mission of the groups and grounding the legal advice in advancing that mission.”