Atlanta officials quietly rebrand city’s DEI office

The move comes as the Trump administration has targeted DEI initiatives and Atlanta officials grapple with how to respond. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport lost tens of millions of dollars in federal grants this year for refusing to sign the administration’s new anti-DEI grant language.

Mayor Andre Dickens told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in September that his team was meeting often to decide what to do about Atlanta’s minority and small business contracting programs.

The city’s equity office was first established by then-Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms four years ago. But she had previously announced the establishment of a similar office, known as One Atlanta, in 2018.

When the equity office was created in 2021, it had a broad mandate to work with city departments and external partners to develop “social justice policies and programs that confront issues” concerning economic and workforce mobility, housing affordability, health, LGBTQ affairs, transportation, education and youth engagement, immigrant affairs, climate change, resilience and sustainability, and criminal justice reform.

“Formally making this office a part of our City government will ensure that this impactful work continues for years to come,” Bottoms said at the time.

But just a few years later, the equity office is gone. Council members Carden Wyckoff, Liliana Bakhtiari, Eshé Collins, Jason Dozier, Alex Wan and Michael Julian Bond introduced the ordinance to change the name to One Atlanta.

“This change enhances our efforts to serve communities across the City of Atlanta,” Michael Smith, Dickens’ press secretary, said in an email.

“With this expansion, we will have stronger coordination, deeper accountability and more measurable outcomes for all who live, work, and visit Atlanta. As we advance A City of Opportunity for All through the Mayor’s second term, this gives us the ability to align efforts focused on social impact and human rights more effectively,” Smith said.

The entire staff of the former equity office is being retained, and the budget is also staying the same, according to Smith. The newly named office will host a Meet One Atlanta Community Conversation in January to hear recommendations from constituents.

Smith said nothing is changing with the city’s Equal Business Opportunity program, a long-standing minority business contracting program.

This is not the first government agency to change the name of its equity office. Earlier this year, MARTA changed the name of its “Office of Diversity and Inclusion” to the “Office of Corporate Compliance and Engagement.”