> How does the legalese parse here? Does "violation of Federal anti-descrimination laws" apply to the whole thing or just the "discriminatory equity ideology" portion of the statement?

“Discriminatory equity ideology” seems intended to be an expansion of DEI (its not the normal meaning of that term, but the structure would be an odd coincidence if it was intended to be an alternative) in which case the sentence should probably read:

“[...] that advance or promote DEI, or discriminatory equity ideology, in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.” (note added comma after ideology).

If “DEI” and “discriminatory equity ideology” were intended as alternatives, the sentence should probably read:

“[...] that advance or promote DEI or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws.” (note removed comma before “or”)

In either case, the “in violation of federal anti-discrimination law” clearly applies to the whole structure. To make it not do so, you’d have to interpret the meaning as best expressed by:

"[...] that advance or promote DEI or, in violation of Federal anti-discrimination law, discriminatory equity ideology.”

That is, that they were intended as alternatives, but also that the “in violation of Federal anti-discrimination law” was misplaced.

But it really doesn’t matter that much how you read it, when you recognize that the whole reason it is in there at all is as implementaiton of the policy in EO 14151, which characterizes DEI (with its normal expansion, not the new one that looks like an expansion but could be read as an alternative) as categorically a violation of federal anti-discrimination law.

I'd assume it parses however the US government wants it to parse.

Lawyers wouldn't have as much job security if commas didn't matter some of the time

This administration is working very hard to make all lawyers redundant. The law doesn't really matter if the court is at the beck and call of the President.

Honestly who knows, i wouldn't even trust a lawyer's advice, this administration has shown itself to not be a plain dealer or trustworthy, and willing to weaponize whatever they want to punish whoever they think needs punishing. Past experience of what should be legally enforceable or not does not seem very reliable at present.

It kind of doesn’t matter, parsing legalese is for when there’s an active rule of law. We are in a time when POTUS can watch an ad he didn’t like, and raise taxes on everyone in the country over night just because he’s pissed off. Do you think it really matters what the actual words say? They are there as a stand-in for the king’s intentions, which may change with some $$$. It’s not as a serious legal contract. PSF might be just fine taking the grant and giving half to Trump personally, but who knows?

Yeah, HN tends toward treating law as less dependent on human application than it is under normal circumstances; with the current practice drifting away from normal circumstances towards “Quod rex vult, lex fit”, that mode of analysis becomes far more dangerously misleading.

At the end of the day it’s about making sure any attempt to help, acknowledge, or in any way highlight marginalized groups is branded as discriminating against the administration’s preferred (usually but not always their own) demographic. The nuances don’t really matter to them, the goal is to make sure that happens every time. If you’re talking about the wrong group in a way they deem “bad,” they will ruin your life.

After all this whining about cancel culture for years and swearing up and down that the government was going to start cracking down on free speech, they have weaponized the government to do just that in the name of protecting 1A. But it’s not just conservative cancel culture, it’s straight up government censorship.

It parses however the Trump administration wants it to parse in any particular context on any particular day. Their legal moves have been a shit-show of incompetence and callous disregard for the law.