48 Fun Facts About DEI Trivia: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

What is the 1964 US law outlawing discrimination by race, colour, religion, sex and national origin called?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed by President Lyndon Johnson on 2 July 1964; its Title VII bars employment discrimination and Title II desegregated public accommodations.

The landmark 1965 election law was designed to stop what?

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 targeted racial discrimination at the polls, banning literacy tests and other tactics that had kept Black Americans from voting in the South.

Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ruled racial segregation unconstitutional in what?

It overturned the 'separate but equal' doctrine for education.

The 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia struck down laws banning what?

Richard and Mildred Loving had been prosecuted in Virginia for their marriage.

In which year was the ADA, the landmark US law protecting disabled people from discrimination, passed?

The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed by President George H. W. Bush in 1990, requiring accessible public spaces and workplaces and barring employment discrimination.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 aimed to abolish wage differences based on what?

The Equal Pay Act of 1963, signed by President Kennedy, bars paying men and women differently for equal work, targeting wage gaps based on sex.

Title IX, passed in 1972, prohibits sex-based discrimination in which area of public life?

It is best known for expanding girls' and women's sports in schools and colleges.

The 1969 uprising seen as the start of the modern LGBTQ rights movement broke out at which New York bar?

The Stonewall Inn riots marked a new beginning for gay rights in the United States; the first Pride marches, a year later, marked their anniversary.

Juneteenth, made a US federal holiday in 2021, commemorates the end of what?

Juneteenth marks 19 June 1865, when Union troops in Galveston, Texas, announced the end of slavery there, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Who was the first woman to serve as a US Supreme Court justice?

Sandra Day O'Connor, nominated by President Reagan in 1981, was the first woman on the Court and served until 2006.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the first woman of which faith on the Supreme Court?

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, appointed in 1993, was the first Jewish woman on the Supreme Court; Louis Brandeis had been the first Jewish justice in 1916.

Who was the first African American justice on the US Supreme Court, appointed in 1967?

Thurgood Marshall, who as NAACP counsel had argued and won Brown v. Board of Education, was appointed by President Johnson in 1967 and served until 1991.

Sonia Sotomayor, appointed in 2009, was the first Supreme Court justice of which heritage?

Sonia Sotomayor, raised in the Bronx by a Puerto Rican family, became the first Latina and first Hispanic justice when confirmed in August 2009.

Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball's colour line on April 15, 1947, starting at first base for which team?

The Brooklyn Dodgers started Robinson at first base that day; his number 42 is now retired across all of baseball.

Sally Ride made history in 1983 by becoming the first American woman to do what?

Sally Ride was the first American woman, and only the third woman anywhere, to fly in space; at 32 she was also the youngest American to do so at the time.

In 2021 Kamala Harris became the first woman, first African American and first Asian American to hold which office?

Kamala Harris was sworn in as Vice President on 20 January 2021; her mother was Indian and her father Jamaican.

Barack Obama, elected in 2008, broke which barrier as the 44th holder of his office?

Barack Obama, son of a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother, became the first African American president, serving as the 44th president from 2009 to 2017.

Katherine Johnson, the NASA mathematician celebrated in the film Hidden Figures, calculated what for Project Mercury?

Spaceflight trajectories, launch windows and emergency return paths were her work; John Glenn reportedly asked her to double-check the computer before his orbital flight.

Rosa Parks sparked the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955 by refusing to do what?

On 1 December 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama; her arrest launched a 381-day boycott of the city's buses.

In which city was Harvey Milk, an early openly gay US official, elected in 1977?

Harvey Milk won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in November 1977 and was assassinated at City Hall in November 1978.

Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta co-founded a union to fight for the rights of which group?

Their group grew into the United Farm Workers.

Dolores Huerta is credited with coining which rallying cry of the farm workers' movement?

Dolores Huerta coined 'Sí se puede' ('Yes, it can be done') during the United Farm Workers' 1972 Arizona campaign; Barack Obama's 2008 'Yes we can' echoed it.

Judith Heumann, 'Mother of the Disability Rights Movement', helped lead which 1977 protest?

The 504 Sit-in occupied San Francisco's federal building for 26 days in April 1977 until regulations enforcing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act were signed.

Stonewall figure Marsha P. Johnson was a leading early activist for the LGBTQ community and which group in particular?

Marsha P. Johnson co-founded STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) with Sylvia Rivera in 1970 to house homeless transgender individuals and gender-nonconforming youth in New York.

Malala Yousafzai became the youngest ever recipient of which honour in 2014?

Malala Yousafzai received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, shared with Kailash Satyarthi, aged 17, two years after surviving a Taliban gunman's attack in Pakistan's Swat Valley.

Who coined the concept of 'intersectionality' in 1989?

Kimberlé Crenshaw coined it in 1989; the law professor later founded a research centre on the idea at Columbia.

The term 'microaggression' was coined in 1970 by Harvard psychiatrist Chester Pierce to describe what?

Chester Pierce used 'microaggression' in 1970 for the small everyday slights and snubs he saw white Americans direct at Black Americans; Derald Wing Sue broadened the term in 2007.

Which president desegregated the US armed forces by executive order in 1948?

Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 on 26 July 1948, ordering equal treatment and opportunity in the armed forces regardless of race, colour, religion or national origin.

Who became the first Black woman elected to the US Congress, in 1968?

Shirley Chisholm won New York's 12th district in November 1968, becoming the first Black woman in Congress; in 1972 she sought the Democratic presidential nomination.

Which US president first officially recognised Black History Month, in 1976?

Gerald Ford urged Americans to mark Black History Month in February 1976, during the bicentennial; it grew out of historian Carter G. Woodson's Negro History Week, begun in 1926.

Women's History Month is observed in the United States during which month?

It lines up with International Women's Day on 8 March.

Pride Month is observed in which month, marking that 1969 uprising's anniversary?

The first Pride marches were held in June 1970.

Hispanic Heritage Month in the US runs from 15 September to which date?

Hispanic Heritage Month runs 15 September to 15 October; the start marks the 1821 independence of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua, with Mexico's on 16 September.

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is celebrated in which month?

Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month is May, chosen for the first Japanese immigrants' arrival in May 1843 and the transcontinental railroad's completion on 10 May 1869.

Native American Heritage Month is observed in the United States in which month?

George H. W. Bush proclaimed November 1990 the first National American Indian Heritage Month, and every president since has proclaimed November.

Which university's 1988 'Deaf President Now' protest won it its first deaf president?

Gallaudet University students shut the Washington, DC, campus for a week in March 1988 until I. King Jordan was named its first deaf president.

Which country was the first to give women the vote in national elections, in 1893?

New Zealand granted women the vote on 19 September 1893, the first self-governing country to do so; Finland followed in 1906, adding the right to stand for parliament.

Helen Keller, who was deaf and blind, became the first deafblind person in the US to do what?

Helen Keller graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904, the first deafblind person to earn a college degree, with Anne Sullivan spelling lectures into her hand.

The NFL's 'Rooney Rule', adopted in 2003, requires teams to do what?

Teams must interview minority candidates for top jobs, meaning head coaching and senior football posts; Dan Rooney's rule has since been copied in other industries.

American Sign Language (ASL) is most closely related to the sign language of which country?

ASL descends largely from the sign language of France, brought to Hartford in 1817 by deaf French teacher Laurent Clerc, co-founder with Thomas Gallaudet of America's first school for the deaf.

Frederick Douglass, a leading 19th-century abolitionist, first gained fame through his skill at what?

Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery in Maryland in 1838, rose to fame through public speaking and writing: his 1841 Nantucket speech launched his lecturing career and his 1845 Narrative became a bestseller.

Which president's 1961 executive order introduced 'affirmative action' into civil-rights policy?

John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10925 (March 1961) told government contractors to take 'affirmative action' so applicants and employees were treated fairly regardless of race, creed, colour or national origin.

In which 1978 Supreme Court case did diversity first become a constitutional-law factor in admissions?

In Regents of UC v. Bakke (1978) the Court struck down racial quotas but Justice Powell's opinion let race count as a 'plus factor' in pursuit of a diverse class.

Which 2023 Supreme Court case rejected race-based affirmative action at colleges?

Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, decided 29 June 2023 with a companion case against North Carolina, held race-conscious admissions unlawful for lacking 'sufficiently focused and measurable objectives'.

In the United Kingdom, which three-letter abbreviation is commonly used instead of DEI?

EDI, for equality, diversity and inclusion, is the usual British ordering of the initials, used across the NHS, universities and the civil service.

In the extended acronym DEIB, used alongside diversity, equity and inclusion, what does the added B stand for?

Belonging is the B that DEIB adds to diversity, equity and inclusion; another extension, JEDI, folds justice in at the front.

The 1938 Wagner–O'Day Act gave federal purchasing preference to goods made by whom?

The Wagner–O'Day Act required federal agencies to buy products made by blind people in nonprofit workshops; the 1971 Javits–Wagner–O'Day Act widened it to people with severe disabilities, the programme later called AbilityOne.

Which 1920 constitutional amendment barred denying American women the vote?

The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified on 18 August 1920 after Tennessee became the 36th state to approve it, barred denying the vote on account of sex.