Politics
C.D.C. Suggests Terms Like ‘Race’ and ‘Health Equity’ Are Off-Limits, Then Backtracks
President Trump’s assault on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts is provoking heated debate within his administration — and the public health field more broadly — over whether words like “race,” “equity” and “disparity” are too politically toxic to use.
The latest battle erupted on Monday, inside the domain of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., when employees of the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention received an email instructing them to avoid using more than a dozen “key words” when writing annual goals for performance evaluations. The disfavored terms, according to copies of the email reviewed by The New York Times, included “health equity,” “race,” “bias,” “disparity,” “culturally appropriate” and “stereotype.”
In Washington, the C.D.C.’s parent agency, the Health and Human Services Department, insisted that there was no “official or unofficial CDC list of banned words,” and accused C.D.C. officials of trying to undermine Mr. Kennedy and Mr. Trump by “intentionally falsifying and misrepresenting guidance they receive.”
The C.D.C. issued a clarifying email saying that the words were still permissible after The Times inquired. But the dispute exposes much deeper tensions, both internal and external, over Mr. Trump’s work to reshape the federal government by rooting out what his allies call “woke ideology.”
Throughout the agency, career scientists and civil servants have been on high alert since Mr. Trump issued a directive for departments to crack down on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. A big chunk of the C.D.C.’s work is promoting “health equity” by narrowing disparities between different groups.
That work does not necessarily involve reducing disparities between white people and other racial groups; there are all kinds of health disparities, including between rich and poor, or rural and urban, that are driven by factors like income, education and access to good housing.
But in a nation where life expectancy is, on average, nearly five years shorter for Black people than for white people, discussions of race in public health are difficult to ignore. The American Public Health Association has declared that racism is a public health crisis.
“In our country, race is a social construct which drives every aspect of our lives,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the association, which represents more than 25,000 public health professionals. “So when we don’t use words that have such an enormous impact, its difficult for people to understand what you’re talking about.”
But Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis, said it is perhaps time for the C.D.C. and public health officials to rethink terms like race and health equity.
Public health, he said, is concerned with the health of populations, not individuals. The ultimate goal, he said, is “to improve health for all populations” — no matter what you call it.
“I think we have to be careful not to over-invest in words that have become very difficult to have meaningful conversations about, and to take a step back and say, ‘What are we trying to achieve?’” Dr. Galea said.
When “particular expressions are so charged that it is closing people’s minds,” he added, “the way around that is not through endless repetition in a moment when people are not willing to hear.”
Monday’s email, according to two people familiar with it, was intended to comply with Mr. Trump’s series of executive orders aimed at gutting diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which the president views as discriminatory and wasteful. The people spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal.
Mr. Trump’s policy is a sharp departure from that of his predecessor, President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who took office at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, which took a devastating toll on people of color. Declaring that racial equity would be at the core of his coronavirus response, Mr. Biden installed a health equity officer in the White House.
Civil rights organizations have sued the Trump administration, arguing that the president’s orders are discriminatory and illegal and that they threaten funding for groups that provide critical services to historically underserved groups. Last week, a federal judge in Maryland temporarily blocked the enforcement of some of the initiatives.
In Atlanta, the C.D.C. is clearly wrestling with how far to go in discussing matters like race and equity now that Mr. Trump is president.
The agency’s five-year strategic plan, adopted in 2022, calls for decreasing “health disparities” by 2024. The goal, it says, is to “narrow racial disparities in blood pressure control, focusing initially on Black adults with hypertension, by improving blood pressure control rates in Black adults by 5%.”
But the C.D.C. also has an Office of Health Equity, which defines health equity as “the state in which everyone has a fair and just opportunity to attain their highest level of health.”
The office’s website appears to have been scrubbed of most mentions of race. Its page on National Minority Health Month includes three mentions of Latinos, but no mention of Black or white people.
The omissions are “astounding,” said David Rosner, a medical historian who co-directs the Center for the History of Ethics and Public Health at Columbia University.
“It’s impossible for a public health person to act responsibly without recognizing that African Americans have suffered,” he said, adding, “Every public health student recognizes in the first year of school that race is a determinative factor of health status. Being poor isn’t good, but being Black and poor is terrible — that’s what you learn. You can’t address public health without being aware of that.”
Apoorva Mandavilli contributed reporting.
By Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Gilad Thaler, Jon Miller, Stephanie Swart, Rafaela Balster, Whitney Shefte and Nikolay Nikolov
May 29, 2026
Politics
Federal judge orders Trump’s name removed from Kennedy Center, says only Congress can rename it
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A federal judge on Friday ordered that President Donald Trump’s name be removed from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee, said the iconic venue cannot be renamed without an act of Congress, ruling that the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees overstepped its “statutory bounds by unilaterally renaming” the building.
As part of his ruling, the Trump administration will be required to take down all physical signage bearing Trump’s name and eliminate any references to a “Trump-Kennedy Center” from official materials.
TRUMP KENNEDY CENTER’S BOARD VOTES UNANIMOUSLY TO APPROVE $257M RENOVATIONS AND TWO-YEAR CLOSURE
A sign is displayed on the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts building. (Getty Images)
“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” Cooper wrote. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”
Roma Daravi, the Trump Kennedy Center vice president of public relations, said the board plans to appeal the decision.
“We will review the decision carefully though the reality remains — the Center requires an urgent and significant restoration – a truth that even the plaintiff acknowledges,” Daravi said. “With $257 million secured by President Trump and approved by Congress, the resources are in place and we remain committed to pursuing every lawful avenue to ensure the Trump Kennedy Center is restored as a national cultural landmark for all Americans to enjoy.”
The ruling was part of a lawsuit filed by U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
BOARD VOTES KENNEDY CENTER TO BE RENAMED ‘TRUMP-KENNEDY CENTER,’ LEAVITT SAYS
President Donald Trump stands in the presidential box during a tour of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on March 17, 2025. On Friday, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s name must be removed from he iconic venue. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)
Cooper previously denied a request for a preliminary injunction filed by a preservation group to block the planned two-year closure of the Kennedy Center for a rehabilitation project.
Trump secured $257 million from Congress as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to address disrepair and deferred maintenance of the Kennedy Center, which critics say has been neglected and mismanaged before Trump intervened.
The funds appropriated by Congress are spent on maintenance, repairs, security, and capital projects related to the building and site.
Beatty, who serves as an ex officio member of the board, praised Friday’s ruling.
“Today’s ruling rightly affirms that this administration’s efforts to rename and close the Center have no basis in law,” Beatty said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump. He has desecrated this sacred memorial for his own vanity. I am proud to have fought for the rule of law and to protect this sacred institution.”
Workers install Donald J. Trump signage above the existing Kennedy Center sign in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 19, 2025. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
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Trump’s name was added to the venue last December following a unanimous decision by the board. In February 2025, Trump was elected chairman of the Kennedy Center board after removing 18 trustees appointed by former President Joe Biden.
WASHINGTON — A framework agreement to end the U.S. war with Iran is all but settled, pending sign-off from the presidents of the two warring sides, President Trump said Friday, projecting optimism that a deal could finally be at hand.
Yet doubt cast a shadow over the diplomatic process entering the weekend as Trump faced a politically fraught decision to enter an agreement that would invariably require significant concessions to Tehran.
The negotiations have faced severe headwinds in recent days, with both sides accusing the other of violating a fragile ceasefire that has largely stopped the fighting since April.
On his Truth Social site, Trump said he had summoned his top aides to the White House Situation Room to decide on the deal.
The agreement would see an end to the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ports and the removal of Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz, an international waterway through which 20% of the world’s energy supply passes each day. The strait, Trump wrote, will reopen with “no tolls” for “unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions.”
And “Iran must agree that they will never have a Nuclear Weapon or Bomb,” Trump wrote, noting that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, the key ingredient for nuclear weapons, “will be unearthed by the United States (which, it is agreed, is the only Country, along with China, with the mechanical capability of doing so!), in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and DESTROYED.”
“No money will be exchanged, until further notice,” he added.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also said the deal would require Iran to disavow the continuation of its domestic nuclear program — a diplomatic feat never before achieved throughout a quarter-century of international negotiations over Iran’s nuclear work.
It is unclear whether Tehran would go that far. And Iran’s negotiators expressed defiance on Friday, stating that there was “no trust in guarantees or words” from the American side.
“No step will be taken before the other side acts first,” said Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament. “We do not gain concessions through dialogue, but through missiles.”
It remains unclear when the Trump administration would ease sanctions on Iran, how extensive that relief would be, or what form it would take — questions that fueled Republican criticism of the Obama-era nuclear deal more than a decade ago.
The working diplomatic document would formally extend the existing ceasefire for 60 days, allowing for a more detailed negotiation to take place over Iran’s nuclear program. But the truce as it currently stands is on perilous ground. Iran launched a ballistic missile on Thursday at Kuwait, a close U.S. ally, after American forces took “defensive” actions against Iranian missile launchers and mine-laying boats it had launched in the strait.
The war has proved historically unpopular with the American public, and has seen oil prices soar since the U.S. military, in partnership with Israel, launched its first strikes against Iran in February.
Bessent said he is hopeful that oil prices would drop quickly once an agreement is signed. But industry analysts say the effects of the war on the oil market could last for months, if not years, with the stability of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz now in question for commercial shippers.
While oil has dropped to under $100 a barrel, markets appeared skittish on Friday over the prospects for a deal, with mixed messages appearing to emerge out of the region.
It is also unclear whether a U.S. agreement with Iran would in any way bind Israel’s hands in its military operations, either in Iran or in Lebanon, where an Iranian proxy militia, Hezbollah, has vowed to keep up the fight.
Israel has ramped up strikes against Hezbollah targets in recent days, jeopardizing a delicate ceasefire negotiated with the Lebanese government, a deal encouraged by the Trump administration in order to grease the wheels for its talks with Tehran.
Trump has been uncharacteristically silent on the prospects of an agreement in recent days, expressing cautious optimism in limited exchanges with reporters.
“It’s hard to say exactly when or if the president’s going to sign,” Vice President JD Vance, who has led the U.S. diplomatic team, told reporters, noting that “the nuclear stuff” is still subject to negotiation. “We’re going back and forth on a couple of language points.”
“I do think that we’ve made a lot of progress here,” Vance added. “Hopefully we’ll continue to make progress, and the president will be in a position where he can endorse the agreement. But obviously, that’s still TBD.”
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