On President Trump’s third day in office, the nonprofit group Human Rights Watch seemed to gain an enthusiastic new supporter: The same person signed up for four of its newsletters, including daily, weekly and monthly updates on its work.
Its new fan subscribed under the name Zenith Flowers. The person’s email: [email protected], the same email the Trump administration set up for federal employees to report on colleagues who defy new executive orders to end diversity programs.
In a memo from the Office of Personnel Management, federal employees had been commanded to email that address if they knew of officials trying to resist the order to shutter its diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs, by renaming or disguising them.
Eight nonprofit groups told The New York Times that someone had signed up with that same email address to receive their newsletters or other communications they send to supporters. The sign-ups had all come during Mr. Trump’s first days in office.
The National Council of Nonprofits said it had heard from 10 groups that had seen this email address added to their mailing lists. Civil rights groups, such as the N.A.A.C.P. and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, also confirmed that they had seen the email address subscribe to their lists.
Officials with the groups said they had no way of knowing who sought to get on their email lists, or why. But the efforts deepened a sense of fear among liberal groups about the new administration’s efforts to enforce its agenda outside government.
The Trump administration has said it is reviewing thousands of grants to see if they violate executive orders against programs he deems “radical” and “illegal.” And Mr. Trump ordered agencies to compile lists of nonprofits with diversity programs — initiatives to help underserved communities and populations that face barriers because of discriminatory practices — that should be investigated for “illegal discrimination or preferences.”
The Leadership Conference, which represents about 200 organizations, sent a notice to its members warning them of “government monitoring of NGOs” and to review their lists, according to an email obtained by The New York Times.
The conference told members that use of emails from the Office of Personnel Management and the new government email targeting diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs were most likely being used by someone seeking to “monitor activity, likely related to D.E.I.A. or racial justice related work.”
A representative for the Office of Personnel Management said it had no involvement in the sign-ups.
The email sign-ups alarmed civil rights groups, which said they were reminiscent of tactics used by the federal government’s infamous counterintelligence program — COINTELPRO — from 1956 to 1971 to monitor and squelch political protest, and to spy on resistance movements like the Black Panther Party.
Inimai Chettiar, president of A Better Balance, a group that works to advance workplace rights, said the fact many organizations saw the government’s D.E.I. email on their listservs was “deeply disturbing” and “part of a broader attack on the federal work force.”
She said the circulation of the email had resulted in “a chilling effect on racial justice advocacy.”
Some nonprofits viewed the use of the government email address as an attempt, either by the White House or Trump supporters, to target them.
Vince Warren, executive director of the left-leaning Center for Constitutional Rights, said his group had noticed the sign-up just days after Mr. Trump took office. “We deleted it,” he said. “The Trump administration should not be mining our communications to use that information against us.”
Others believed it was a simple prank, meant to clog the inbox of administration officials trying to root out diversity initiatives.
At The Latino Newsletter, a small nonprofit news outlet, the executive director Julio Ricardo Varela said it was chilling at first to see there had been four attempts to add [email protected] to the mailing list. But then he saw from where the tries had come: San Antonio, Phoenix and a mobile phone in London.
“This can’t be the federal government,” he said. “I was trolled. Let’s move on. I’ve got to publish the next newsletter.”
At Human Rights Watch, where Zenith Flowers had signed the same Trump administration address for four newsletters, Stacy Sullivan, the group’s spokeswoman, said it was not changing its policies on diversity. And it was not planning to remove the email from its lists either.
“Our plan is to do precisely nothing,” she said. “Anyone is welcome to subscribe to our newsletters, so we are not planning to unsubscribe these addresses.”
Ms. Chettiar said even if the Trump administration was not behind the use of D.E.I. email for nonprofit lists, the fact that someone has circulated it shows how much Mr. Trump’s actions have encouraged the public to target initiatives focused on diversity. The result is that nonprofits and civil rights organizations are rattled.
“The effect of all of this is going to be a less inclusive, less diverse work force,” Ms. Chettiar said. “And also stifling of D.E.I. and racial justice efforts outside the federal government as well.”
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