On Tuesday February 17, 2026, the Gresham City Council voted 5 to 1 in favor of repealing the city’s 2021 Diversity Equity and Inclusion resolution and replacing it with a resolution entitled “Fairness, Access, Respect and Accountability” (FARA). Councilor Eddy Morales was the sole member who voted against replacing the city’s DEI statement with FARA. The FARA resolution was previously put onto the agenda for the Dec. 9, 2025 city council meeting, where community members were calling for the city council to pass an emergency resolution addressing local ICE activity, but was postponed.

Eddy Morales was the sole city councilor present to vote against replacing the DEI resolution with the new FARA resolution.

Several of the councilors argued against the view presented by Andre Miller, Vice Chair of the Multnomah County Democrats, who described the city repealing the DEI resolution as following a nationwide “coordinated backlash” against DEI language.

Gresham Mayor Travis Stovall said that the resolution had “nothing to do with changing language to fit some national narrative.” Councilor Kayla Brown said that the city was “not trying to adopt something on a national standard but what works best for Gresham.”

From his perspective, Miller told me, the Gresham City Council’s vote to repeal the DEI resolution was happening because of executive orders created by the Trump administration to get rid of DEI under threat of taking away federal funding from local municipalities.

A number of executive orders created under the Trump Administration have argued that DEI language violates the Civil Rights Act, and have worked to remove language describing the disparate-impact theory of discrimination which argues that even neutral policies can be discriminatory if they have a discriminatory effect.

Miller asked the councilors to approve a disparity study, to audit hiring, promotions, contracts and procurement to ensure compliance within Title VII of The Civil Rights Act.

Except for a comment by Councilor Sue Piazza, who implied that staff might be wanting to use FARA to replace the prior DEI language based on unspecified federal guidelines at a Nov. 4, 2025 work session, there doesn’t seem to be any direct evidence that this resolution was passed or written with the purpose of complying with any specific executive order.

At a Nov. 4, 2025 work session, when City Manager Eric Schmidt presented the proposed FARA resolution to council members, he described the effort as simplifying the city’s previous DEI statement to avoid people potentially being put off by the term “DEI” or misunderstanding what it was about. Schmidt also said that the resolution was not created as a result of any recent election.

The council members who approved the passage of FARA said they viewed it as a continuation of the work the City had been doing under the previous DEI resolution and that even if it was called something else the work would continue. Council President Cathy Keathley said that, “The city is absolutely committed to all the efforts that we’ve had and that we continue to do, the name of the program is not as important as what the program does.” Likewise, Councilor Brown said that their goal was “not to conceal the work of DEI” but, “to anchor it and center it in the work that is being done.”

Councilor Morales and Miller did not view FARA replacing the city’s DEI resolution in the same light. For Miller, the problem with FARA isn’t what’s in the new resolution - it’s what’s not. FARA, Miller told me, “doesn’t have anything as far as language in the actual resolution to show that they are going to be building off of the policies and efforts that were already taking place.”

Notably, the language in FARA does not mention any specific groups that have experienced discrimination and instead uses broad language that seems intended to have a similar effect. Miller told me that without specifically mentioning disability, sex and race, the City of Gresham wouldn’t have the tools in place to address various forms of discrimination from the gender pay gap, to redlining, to Oregon’s history of Black exclusion laws.

Neither Morales or Miller were strictly opposed to FARA itself but were instead opposed to it replacing the previous DEI resolution. At the Dec. 9 meeting, Miller said that FARA “should be intended to clarify goals, improve communication and reduce politicized noise around the DEI acronym, not be used to replace it. Morales said likewise before he voted against FARA, “I’m for FARA and for DEI, and not for replacing one for the other.”

The best explanation I have for where the source of the disagreement between Morales and the rest of the city council stems from is that the language in FARA and in the previous DEI statement are written from two entirely different ideological perspectives.

Here are the two lines that I think most closely shows this difference:

In the original DEI resolution it says,

“Whereas, equity is more concerned with fairness than equality, it recognizes that all individuals do not start at the same place ...”

While in the FARA resolution it reads,

“Whereas, Fairness means ensuring that all individuals are treated justly, without bias or favoritism ...”

The underlying tension between these two lines is that people disagree about what fairness actually means. It’s also the difference between modern liberalism and classical liberalism. For modern liberalism, society starting unequal means that some people need more help than others to participate in the economy. For classical liberals as long as people are free from interpersonal discrimination and wouldn’t be denied opportunities solely based on who they are, then that’s the best that can be done while still being fair to others.

The concerns that Morales and Miller both expressed about approving FARA without the prior DEI resolution in effect highlights how they view the impact of historical discrimination on the present. As Councilor Morales said, “unless we are willing to acknowledge that there is disparities and really put policies and solutions to addressing them we won’t see that happen.”

Note: I was previously a canvasser for a political group co-founded by Councilor Eddy Morales.

Gresham City Council from left to right: Kayla Brown, Eddy Morales, Jerry Hinton, Travis Stovall, Cathy Keathley, Sue Piazza, and Janine Gladfelter.

On January 6, 2026 the Gresham City Council reached a consensus to draft a resolution addressing the community impacts felt due to ongoing fear and disruption caused by the aggressive approach to immigration being taken the Trump administration. Gresham Mayor Travis Stovall said that staff would be directed to draft a resolution in response to community pressure for the city council to pass a “state of emergency” declaration to address the concerns brought by community members. “We will have this resolution prepared and ready for discussion at our next meeting,” Stovall said.

One element likely to come up in the draft resolution is the economic disruption caused by broad immigration enforcement. It was suggested by Councilor Kayla Brown, who said that she wants the resolution to specifically include “the economic impact this is gonna have on our community.”

The Gresham City Council’s business meeting was preceded by a rally of community members and activists continuing to push for “a state of emergency” declaration from the council. During that time, an activist with Portland Contra Las Deportaciones lead the group in anti-ICE chants that were pitted against chants from a handful of counter-protesters in support of continuing broad immigration enforcement.

Mayor Stovall argued that comments made at the meeting by community members that the city and city council “has done very little or nothing” were untrue. He said that the city was already working to address issues brought up by community members such as helping people pay their utilities bill, access food assistance and by partnering with community organizations doing work to help meet the needs of the community.

Further, Stovall said that he was asking Multnomah County to devote some of the funds they recently allocated as part of their own emergency declaration in response to ICE activity to east county.

Several of the city councilors perceived that many of the community members asking them to pass an emergency declaration understand that it would not stop ICE. Several also expressed concerns that this understanding would not be shared by other community members. Councilor Cathy Keathley, said they believed that even if the city passed an emergency declaration community members would continue to write letters asking why the city’s police wouldn’t stop “ICE from victimizing our community members.” Her concerns highlight one of the underlying tensions that will remain even should the city council pass a resolution addressing the grievances brought to them.

This tension was previously pointed out by a speaker at a Dec. 9, 2025 city council meeting who identified themselves as a high school civics teacher that “the rule of law” is supposed to provide an equal protection to all people and apply to all people equally. They said they believed that, because of the actions of immigration agents, enforcing state and local laws is coming into tension with not obstructing federal agents.

At the January 6 meeting, Alyssa Walker Keller, a coordinator for the Portland Immigrants Rights Coalition, described reports of “masked agents” dragging people out of cars, breaking into houses without warrants, using duplicate license plates, pepper spraying observers and, “sending people to hospitals on a regular basis.” Walker said that, “this is not law enforcement as usual, these are agents operating without fear of reprisal.”

After the Dec. 9, 2025 meeting, Mayor Stovall wrote in a Dec. 16 press release that the country could both be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. At the close of the Jan. 6 city council meeting he encouraged community members to take their energy to their congressional representatives to reform federal immigration policy.

*This article was updated to clarify that Cathy Keathley is one of the city councilors and updated the relevant photo caption.

The council chambers were packed as the Gresham city council heard what their options were to address the aggressive approach taken by immigration enforcement officers by the city attorney at a Dec. 9, 2025 council meeting. Local community members and a group of community organizations that referred to themselves as the Sacred Organizing Coalition called on the city council to pass an emergency declaration to address the actions of immigration enforcement agents in the community.

Rev. Joshua Dunham from the Gresham Covenant Presbyterian Church told the councilors that his church had experienced disruptions due to the environment created by broad Immigration and Customs Enforcement removal operations. Dunham said that “ICE abducted a young man in front of my church” and that they were “fully masked, fully armed and not identifying themselves.” He says that the Spanish language congregations that use their building had seen significant drops in attendance and that one has stopped meeting altogether and won’t be attending church for Christmas. Dunham says this is because, “There are many, due to the actions of ICE, who are afraid to celebrate this season.”

City Councilor Kayla Brown said they found the tactics, profiling and lack of training by federal agents concerning but that those problems had also “made it nearly impossible to acknowledge that some truly dangerous individuals have been removed from our streets.” Councilor Brown said that the city is “upholding our sanctuary city duties.”

Gresham Council President Jerry Hinton said that they loved how people can “come from all four corners of the world and come to America and become an American.” He also his expressed his belief that immigrants are an important part of society and help keep the US population growing: “We need our immigrants to be part of our society.” He continued that “We want them but we also believe in the rule of law - we need to document them.” Hinton also expressed a desire for progress to be made towards bi-partisan immigration reform.

The city attorney, Ellen Van Riper, also addressed concerns brought up by community members that the city could be using automated license plate readers made by flock which could be used by federal agencies to enforce immigration laws. They said that, “contrary to a statement made during the last council meeting the Gresham Police Department does not have a contract with flock group for any surveillance or data collection system.” And that further, the Gresham police department does not share or sell any data to federal, state, or local law enforcement for immigration purposes. Riper said that City of Gresham staff and police would work to ensure that their policies and contracts do not allow the sharing of any data without explicit permission.

Riper said that Oregon’s sanctuary promise law prohibits state or local law enforcement from helping federal agencies with enforcing immigration law. Riper said that the city could not prevent DHS or ICE from entering public property “otherwise open to public access” but could exclude ICE and DHS from entering “city property or facilities not open to the general public” without a valid judicial warrant. Riper said that model policies drafted by the office of Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield are currently being reviewed by their office.

An immigrant who spoke to the councilors who asked to be referred to as La Guerita said that immigration officers use of face coverings and being unwilling to identify themselves is spreading fear in their community. “We don’t exactly know if they really are immigration or not they cover they face they just come and give fear to everybody.” And they said that immigrants are being “treated like criminals.” “We’re not criminals,” they said. (To be clear, the social science data does not support claims that increased levels of immigration lead to increased rates of crime.) Since the start of the Trump Administration the number of people arrested by ICE without any criminal history has dramatically increased.

Initially, Councilor Brown said that they weren’t sure if the city was in enough danger to make an emergency declaration. But their views seem to be evolving. They concluded that, “my opinion on the state of emergency is changing and that’s because of you guys tonight.”

The next Gresham City Council meeting is currently scheduled for Tuesday January 6, 2026.