A coalition of leading civil rights organizations issued the following statement in response to Executive Order 14179, which attempts to undermine the ability of state and local governments to protect their residents from harms caused by artificial intelligence. The executive order improperly attempts to expand presidential authority and allow rampant adoption of unregulated AI, while trying to neuter the ability of states to protect people—disproportionately Black people and other people of color—who continue to be harmed by discriminatory, unsafe, and biased AI products.
“American leadership in technology means nothing if the price of that progress is sacrificing our civil rights and our democracy. We already know that the Black community is disproportionately harmed by the systemic biases baked into the data used to train AI products. By punishing states for protecting their own people from these harms, the order is a virtual invitation to discrimination. It will weaken essential protections against discrimination, and also invite privacy abuses and unchecked surveillance,” said Damon T. Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
“Far from creating a ‘lone standard’, this EO seems designed to ensure that there will be no standard at all. It hands unprecedented power to private companies—allowing them to deploy high-risk AI systems without meaningful accountability at any level-federal or state. Not only is this bad policy and an egregious overreach of federal authority, but it is also immoral.”
“Sacrificing civil rights protections for the sake of promoting AI and other algorithmic technologies is deeply misguided and potentially unlawful,” said Legal Defense Fund President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson. “These technologies have and can further perpetuate discrimination in employment, housing, public safety, education, and much more against Black people. We must make sure that advances in technology benefit all of us. The Trump administration cannot circumvent state laws that work to protect people from the dangers of AI by executive order, and should not undermine the safety and well-being of the public to help line the pockets of tech companies.”
“This executive order shuts down states trying to stop discrimination and silences communities defending themselves from injustice dressed up as ‘innovation.’ Historically, states have driven civil rights enforcement through fair employment laws, consumer protections, privacy safeguards, and when that authority is blocked, protections stop evolving while harm continues. Digital equity depends on enforceable, adaptive safeguards, not fixed federal assurances that leave discrimination unchecked. With more than 140 National Action Network chapters nationwide and our Washington Bureau fully engaged, this is a priority civil rights issue, and our organization is actively pressing for accountability, enforcement, and community protection at every level.” said Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of National Action Network.
“The administration just won’t let their failed block on state and local AI laws die. This executive order is another example of the current administration bullying state and local governments to get what it wants, threatening lawsuits and the revocation of federal funding while making hollow carveouts. Automated systems have wrongly blocked countless individuals from housing, health care, and jobs they deserve. As advocates dedicated to protecting civil rights and expanding opportunity, we can never support a ban on local protections while there are no federal safeguards to speak of. Congress must pass comprehensive and strong federal protections that center our rights and ensure AI works for all of us,” said Maya Wiley, president & CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
“The communities we serve have no reason to believe that the same power players in Silicon Valley who routinely exclude us from participating in the tech economy have any incentive to protect us in the race for artificial intelligence. Time and time again, we’ve seen disproportionate harm when regulations are lax across industries, from finance to the environment, and artificial intelligence will be no different. We demand that state leaders retain the right to protect the people they serve even when the federal government refuses to,” said Marc Morial, president & CEO of the National Urban League
“The NAACP opposes this executive order because it limits state-level action on artificial intelligence without establishing enforceable federal civil rights, environmental justice, or accountability standards to take its place. Preventing states from acting, while leaving communities without meaningful protections against discrimination, surveillance abuse, labor harm, and environmental impacts, creates a dangerous regulatory vacuum. Federal leadership should raise the floor for civil rights and equity, not preempt local protections in their absence. Innovation must be governed by justice, transparency, and accountability, not shielded from oversight,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP.
NCNW President & CEO Shavon Arline-Bradley stated, “Unregulated usage of AI may lead to disastrous outcomes for Black women, their families, and communities. Regulations protect Black women from discrimination. As we further explore ethical usage of AI, it is imperative that we develop and maintain policy that protects Black women from discrimination.
This Executive Order would cause harm to Black communities by amplifying existing algorithmic biases—the same biases that lead to wrongful detention, housing and education discrimination, and poorer healthcare outcomes for people of color. It would also weaken already fragile protections against the spread of false information, which has severe consequences for healthcare and education.
Measuring America’s leadership in the AI space should not rest solely on quantitative metrics. It should also be measured by how the technology improves the quality of life for citizens of all ages, races, and socioeconomic backgrounds. This cannot be accomplished without research, testing, and regulation.”
NCBCP President & CEO Melanie L. Campbell stated, “This Executive Order sacrifices American citizens’ consumer protections and civil rights to insulate tech companies from being accountable for the harms caused by AI. This Executive Order’s veiled attempt to frame AI as a national security race in which tech companies must be free to innovate without “cumbersome” regulation ignores the countless accounts of how AI tools have helped bad actors victimize citizens of this nation with such things as AI chatbots that harm our children’s well-being and mental health to scammers that use AI tools to steal money from vulnerable citizens by cloning the voices of their family members and friends.
We look to Congress to establish guardrails to protect us from the harms caused by AI. We stand ready to work with Congress to pass comprehensive federal laws to protect American citizens’ consumer and civil rights from the harms of AI.”
Under the U.S. Constitution and centuries of legal precedent, preemption is only proper when an act of Congress—not the President’s whims—conflict with state laws. In fact, the Executive Order implicitly acknowledges its limited effect by requiring White House advisors to provide a legislative recommendation for a national AI framework that would preempt conflicting state laws. Yet, the executive order directs agencies to baselessly review and challenge state laws in an attempt to manufacture a conflict between state and federal law, explicitly calling out state laws that address algorithmic discrimination. In this way, the order seeks to punish states for protecting their own residents, including by restricting funding for broadband access.
The executive order follows repeated failed attempts to ban state AI regulation. Most recently, some Congressional leaders tried to insert language in the National Defense Authorization Act to broadly prohibit any state or local law or regulation governing AI—including enforcement of existing laws. This followed an attempt earlier this year to include a ten-year moratorium on state regulation of technology in the “Big Beautiful Bill.” That provision was removed from the bill in the Senate by a nearly unanimous 99-1 vote. Such provisions would have stripped states and cities of the power to protect residents, including children, consumers, Black people and other people of color, from AI-driven harms such as deepfake exploitation, political disinformation, and discrimination.
State AI protection is broadly popular. Recent polling shows that 81% of voters, including 78% of Republicans, believe “we shouldn’t force states to sit on the sidelines for a full decade” on AI regulation. Seventy-three percent of voters want state and federal AI regulation.
Sincerely,
Damon Hewitt
President and Executive Director
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Marc H. Morial
President and Chief Executive Officer
National Urban League
Reverend Al Sharpton
Founder and President
National Action Network
Melanie Campbell
President and Chief Executive Officer National Coalition
on Black Civic Participation and National Convenor
of the Black Women’s Roundtable
Derrick Johnson
President and Chief Executive Officer
NAACP
Janai Nelson
President and Director-Counsel
NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
Maya Wiley
President and Chief Executive Officer
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
Shavon Arline-Bradley
President and Chief Executive Officer
National Council of Negro Women
