Orange County commissioners on Tuesday formally went ahead with suspending the county’s decades-old minority and women business enterprise program, citing anti-DEI orders from the federal government as the reason for why doing so was a necessity.
Executive orders issued by the Trump administration in January, targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, include a requirement that recipients of grant funding from federal agencies “certify that they do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate federal anti-discrimination laws.”
The county’s legal team is concerned that continuing to operate a program that serves to help uplift minority-run businesses could run afoul of that — and potentially forfeit the county’s share of federal funding. According to Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings, the county receives more than $100 million in recurring grants each year from the federal government, plus hundreds of millions of dollars more in non-recurring grants to support the county’s operations.
Programs in Orange County that are supported by federal funds, according to Demings, include homeless services programs, housing voucher programs, early childhood education through HeadStart, air pollution monitoring, disaster assistance and federal USDA grants for the agricultural community.
“Some ask, ‘Well, what if we don’t do this? What if we don’t accept the federal funds?’ Well, we’d be cutting our nose off to spite our face,” said Demings, who first was elected mayor in 2018 as the first Black man to serve in the role. “We’d be negatively impacting real people, and lives in our community.”
Even more, county staff could potentially face civil and criminal penalties and prosecution, should the county apply for federal grants, and certify them, while continuing to operate DEI programs that the federal government characterizes as “illegal discrimination.”
“I spent a full career putting people in jail,” remarked Demings, a former police chief and Orange County sheriff. “I don’t plan on going to jail because of violating the law.”
“I don’t plan on going to jail because of violating the law”
Orange County’s M/WBE program (one of the only ones in Central Florida) was first established in 1988 in an effort to address racial and gender disparities in the procurement process, and to promote the business and economic growth of minority- and female-owned enterprises who have historically been underrepresented.
Officials within the Trump administration, however, have described any sort of program offering race- or sex-based preferencing as “illegal discrimination,” “dangerous,” and even “immoral.”
Several commissioners on the Democratic-leaning Orange County Commission expressed unease with suspending the local M/WBE program, but admitted that the potential alternative — losing hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding, and facing criminal charges — would be worse.
“We have a diverse community,” commissioner Nicole Wilson acknowledged, adding that it’s important to take stock of history lessons and work to ensure a level playing field for everyone.
“We have small business owners who are direct descendants of slaves, who are first generation immigrants, first generation graduates from college, and I think giving an equal playing field for opportunity is part of the American way,” she shared. “But I’m also not willing to sacrifice the dollars that go into our preschool classrooms at this time.”
She’s not the only one. The city of Orlando, facing the same threats, similarly suspended their minority and women business enterprise program last month. Commissioners in Palm Beach County, home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, did as well.
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Still, Orange County leaders do plan to move forward with developing a program to uplift small business enterprises, specifically, without utilizing any keywords that could get flagged by the federal government. They’ll be discussing a proposal for such a program on July 15.
“We want to continue to have that dignity of being able to say that we’re still going to offer this opportunity to small businesses, because that’s the essence of what we are in Orange County is the land of opportunity,” Commissioner Mayra Uribe previously told Orlando Weekly, ahead of the meeting Tuesday. “We want to make sure we do everything that we’re capable of to ensure the protection of that,” she added.
Under the direction of President Donald Trump and his appointed officials, Orange County leaders have faced a number of challenges, from controversy over complying with federal immigration enforcement and threats facing Orange County’s sizable Haitian population with Temporary Protected Status to endangered public education funding from the U.S. Department of Education and cuts to federal departments and agencies with local offices — such as the Social Security Administration — as part of the administration’s goal of downsizing the federal government.
“We are a subdivision of the United States, and it is what it is at this time,” said Demings ahead of the vote to suspend the county’s M/WBE program Tuesday morning. “You may not like it — I don’t like it — I think most of us don’t like it, but we cannot risk the other things that we’re able to do and must do to take care of our community.”
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This article appears in Jul 2-8, 2025.
