Federal health workers, mostly Black, are fearful of what’s to come after their names were listed as targets on a website called “DEI Watch List,” NBC News reported.
It is unclear when the website first appeared listing photos, names, and public information of workers across health agencies, labeling them as “targets.” Workers’ offenses listed on the website include working on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, sending donations to Democratic elected officials, and using pronouns in the bios.
Executive director of the American Public Health Association, Dr. Georges Benjamin, called the website a “scare tactic” after a colleague sent it to him
. “This is a scare tactic to try to intimidate people who are trying to do their work and do it admirably,” Benjamin said.“It’s clear racism.”
On Feb. 4, the site, with a note at the bottom saying, “a project of the American Accountability Foundation,” a conservative watchdog group, linked more information about the workers under the “targets” headline. Later on, the headlines were changed to “dossiers.” One worker who found out their name was on the list called the feeling “unnerving.” “My name and my picture is there, and in 2025, it’s very simple to Google and look up someone’s home address and all kinds of things that potentially put me at risk,” the unidentified person said.
“I don’t know what the intention of the list is for. It’s just kind of a scary place to be.”
As for acts of online harassment, Benjamin suggests law enforcement should be looking into the lists. Following President Donald Trump’s executive order to dismantle DEI programs at the federal level, a sense of anxiousness — and anger — has taken over for DEI professionals concerned with the industry’s state and the changes impacting their future,
according to CNN. “They (DEI professionals) are so incredibly frustrated that they are being lied on and misrepresented as too woke, divisive people who hate America,” Shaun Harper, founder of the Race & Equity Center at the University of Southern California, said.“And that’s not who those folks are.”
This is not the first time conservative groups have created such lists. In December 2024, names of people in the military who were deemed too focused on DEI were sent to Pete Hegseth, the now-new Department of Defense secretary. Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed they received “threatening”
memos from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) directing them to end any activities, jobs, and research connected to DEI. “The tone is aggressive. It’s threatening consequences if we are not obedient. It’s asking us to report co-workers who aren’t complying,” one CDC physician said.“There’s a lot of fear and panic.”
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