New York — PBS says it is shutting down its office of diversity, equity and inclusion to comply with President Trump’s executive order and firing the two executives brought on when the effort was begun in 2021.
The move, eliminating the jobs held by Cecilia Loving and her associate Gina Leow, comes as public television and radio gird for a fight over federal funding likely to be more serious than they’ve faced in many years.
Despite eliminating the DEI effort, PBS CEO Paula Kerger said Tuesday that “we were committed to telling the stories of all Americans before we had an office, and will continue to do it afterwards.”
Because PBS gets federal funding through U.S. Department of Education and National Science Foundation for its children’s programming, the system’s lawyers determined that it needed to comply with Mr. Trump’s order, she said. The system gets some $535 million in general support from the government, about 16% of its…
