This story is part of an occasional series, Federal Effects, about how changes in federal policy are impacting our local community.

Afraid it could lose millions in federal housing dollars, Roanoke has begun quietly removing diversity, equity and inclusion language from city government webpages.

An official with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development contacted the city on Feb. 26 about President Donald Trump’s executive order on “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” according to an email City Manager Valmarie Turner sent City Council members on Feb. 28.

“They are notifying all grant recipients or grantees of the potential risk of funding loss if their websites contain ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ (DEI) language, and such language should be removed,” Turner wrote. “Staff asked for the request to be sent in writing; however, we were told that they could not give any other instructions and/or provide this request in writing.”

Since Turner’s email, city webpages have been taken down, though some Council members were not aware of the scrubbing until last week.

Gone are city webpages devoted to employee DEI training, worker demographic data and city department equity action plans. So too is an employee-focused page on language access, which explained how residents who do not speak English could access city services. “We're sorry, but there is not a web page matching your entry,” the error messages read. 

On city webpages, the name of the citizen Equity and Empowerment Advisory Board has been changed to EEAB, with no explanation of what the board does. A webpage that included the board’s agendas and minutes has disappeared.

“These are some of the things we’re monitoring,” Mayor Joe Cobb said Tuesday when asked about the removal of the equity board materials. Cobb said the city would continue to promote diversity, even if the city website doesn’t advertise that.

“DEI is in our DNA, and it has been for a really long time,” Cobb said. “Roanoke has and will continue to initiate actions that are very tangible, they're very visual, and sometimes behind the scenes, that celebrate who we are as a city of diversity and inclusion.”

Cobb defended the website scrubbing as an unfortunate necessity to continue providing critical services, such as lead abatement, to residents.

“From one standpoint, it looks like we're erasing an essential part of our story,” he said. “The bottom line for me as mayor, and I think for us as council and city administration, is we want to do whatever we can to ensure that our citizens are getting the services they need and rely on.”

City spokeswoman Carol Corbin referred questions to Cob. She did not respond when asked if non-elected city officials would answer questions about the city’s actions.

“This is a very sticky situation,” said Councilman Phazhon Nash, who shared the information from Turner’s email with The Rambler. “I am scared for us to potentially lose federal funds or even just have retaliation.”

Nash, who sat on the equity board, said he believes certain city webpages will be “rebranded” and will reflect “what we stand for and what we believe, but don’t, you know, set off flares.”

Turner’s email said the federal official who contacted Roanoke was with the department’s Office of Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes. Her email said Roanoke has three open grants with that office, totaling about $11.5 million. In addition, the city receives about $2.5 million in planning and development grants through another HUD office.

Just last week, Council voted to accept nearly $6 million in HUD grants used to remove lead-based paint from homes with children under the age of six.

Kasey Lovett, head of public affairs for HUD, responded to a question by pointing to recent guidance on disaster relief action plans. Secretary Scott Turner was quoted as saying “DEI is dead at HUD,” in a March 12 Fox News story about the agency nixing Asheville, North Carolina’s draft hurricane relief plan because it mentioned prioritizing minority- and women-owned businesses. 

Lovett did not respond to follow-up messages about Roanoke’s situation.

Some critics of diversity, equity and inclusion policies contend they counter meritocratic efforts, divide people over race and gender identities and amount to “illegal and immoral discrimination,” in the words of the executive order.

David Bustamante, executive director of the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority, said he was also contacted a few weeks ago by HUD officials because of a $3 million grant on radon testing and mitigation.

“The individuals that monitor that grant called us and told us, in order to be compliant, we had to go in and remove everything that we had on our website that had any DEI information,” Bustamante said.

Bustamante said he and employees scoured the housing authority’s website but did not find anything associated with diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Now, DEI’s definition, I think, has expanded exponentially in the last six weeks.” he said. “So I'm hoping that there's nothing on our website that might be construed as DEI without the intent of it being DEI.”

Federal agencies have compiled lists of words and terms that the Trump administration views as part of a “woke” agenda, and which they say should be removed from public-facing websites, according to The New York Times. Besides terms like “DEI” and “LGBT,” the government has flagged words including “disability,” “Black,” "segregation," “feminism,” and “injustice.” 

Bustamante said he does not understand how the housing authority’s work can be divorced from advocating for groups that are marginalized (another adjective flagged by the government).

“Everything that we do here at the housing authority, I think, is in some way covered by DEI,” he said. “I mean, we deal with elderly, we deal with disabled, we deal with low-income, and by definition, those individuals would meet the classification of DEI. So I don't know how you remove that, even though our population is that.”

It wasn’t immediately clear how many other local governments in Virginia have scrubbed their website of diversity-related language. 

A Richmond spokesperson said they were “not aware of federal outreach specific to particular language on City websites.” As of Tuesday, Staunton’s website hosted a page on its Diversity Equity and Inclusion Commission and Charlottesville had a page on social equity.

Some Roanoke-controlled websites that mention “equity” still remain live; “Interwoven Equity” is a key component of the city’s comprehensive plan, which recommended the creation of the equity board. 

During a town hall held last week by a liberal activist group, Cobb mentioned that HUD “told us if we don’t remove all of the diversity, equity and inclusive language found on our website, all of that $15 million in funding is jeopardized.” Audience members jeered. “It’s horrible,” Cobb said. 

“So we’re wrestling with that and thinking how to address it. But the bottom line is that funding we receive is critical to the livelihood of our citizens, and that’s our first priority,” Cobb said. “To replace that would require extraordinary adjustments in our budget, which is already challenging.”