National Credit Union Administration Required Employees, Contractors to Attend CRT-Inspired ‘Unconscious Bias Training’

The National Credit Union Administration (NCUA), which is an independent federal agency responsible for regulating credit unions, required its employees and contractors to undergo “inclusion and unconscious bias training,” according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. 

The conservative watchdog group published 15 pages of records it received through a Freedom of Information Act request on Wednesday, including an email from February 25, 2021 from the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) to “All NCUA Staff” that included an attached memo that details a “new, required training course” called “Inclusion at Work: Managing Unconscious Bias at the Office.”

The memo said the training was required for “all employees and contractors” as part of “required annual diversity and inclusion training.”

“The NCUA is committed to building the diversity and inclusion competencies of employees to advance NCUA’s Strategic Objective 3.1 – to attract, engage and retain a highly skilled, diverse workforce, and cultivate an inclusive environment,” the memo reads.

On March 1, 2021, OMWI sent an internal NCUA newsletter, VIBE, to all NCUA staff. The newsletter featured a message from the new NCUA Chairman, Todd Harper, in which he said, “I truly look forward to working with OMWI to VIBE and advance diversity and inclusion not just within the agency, but also in the entities and communities we serve.”

He added: “NCUA’s Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan outlines five additional goals for this work, including one specific to diversity and inclusion in credit unions and another for diversity in our business activities. These are not just OMWI’s goals. They are agency-wide goals.” 

The newsletter went on to inform staffers of the creation of a new position called diversity and inclusion specialist. It also included a section on “diversity and inclusion learning,” which included suggestions such as “Take a few minutes to read through these Seven Ways to Be More Inclusive in Your Everyday Life,” “Learn how to Be Inclusive Every Day,” and to “Use the Inclusion Guide for Interviewees to prepare yourself for diversity and inclusion related questions” for employees preparing to interview for a promotion or new position.

Another edition of the newsletter emailed to all NCUA staff on December 1, 2021, included a section called, “Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Learning,” which told staffers that, “A microaggression is defined as an indirect, subtle, or unintentional form of discrimination against members of a marginalized group. But for those who experience them, microaggressions are more than just insults or insensitive jokes – they are painful, powerful, and can inflict lasting harm.”

The newsletter also included links to three articles: “What is a microaggression? 14 things people think are fine to say at work – but are actually racist, sexist or offensive;” “How to Address Microaggressions in the Workplace;” and “Microaggressions at work: Recognizing & overcoming our biases.”

Employees who clicked through to the first article, which was published in March 2021 by Business Insider, would learn that “microaggressions” include anything from “telling a new female worker that she ‘looks like a student’ to asking a Black colleague about her natural hair.” The article says such comments “can make a workplace feel uncomfortable, unsafe, and toxic.” 

On July 12, 2021 OMWI sent an email to all staff inviting them to an OMWI Talk on “Deconstructing White Privilege.” The talk featured a video from Dr. Robin DiAngelo, author of What Does It Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacy, according to Judicial Watch.

The email called DiAngelo an “anti-racist educator,” who has “heard justifications of racism by white men and women in her workshops for over two decades.”

“This justification, which she calls ‘white fragility’, is a state in which even a minimal amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves,” the email added.

Earlier this year, NCUA staff were again invited to attend a virtual OMWI Talk. A February 10, 2022 email to all staff obtained by Judicial Watch said attendees of the event would watch a video and discuss “the role our institutions and public policies play in shaping opportunities and one’s ability to accumulate wealth.”

The talk would include an airing of the Race: The House We Live In, which is described as the “first film about race to focus not on individual attitudes but on the ways our institutions and policies advantage some groups at the expense of others.”

“Its subject is the ‘unmarked’ race,” the email adds. “We see how benefits quietly and often invisibly accrue to [the majority], not necessarily because of hard work, but because of the racialized nature of our laws, courts, customs, and perhaps most pertinently, housing.”

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement on Wednesday that “Americans should be disturbed that the Biden administration is using the agency responsible for regulating credit unions to subject employees and the public to an extremist and discriminatory Critical Race Theory ideology that attacks individuals based on race.”