NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: U.S. Border Czar to Meet with Mayor Adams, DEI Challenges Ahead in New York, and the New Voice of Yankees Radio Prepares for Baseball Season

Episode Date: February 12, 2025

Tom Homan is scheduled to meet with Mayor Eric Adams Thursday to discuss New York City's role in enforcing the Trump administration's deportation efforts. Plus, WNYC’s Janae Pierre and Arun Venugopal discuss the future of DEI efforts. And finally, a conversation with the new voice of Yankees Radio, Dave Sims, about the upcoming baseball season.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. U.S. border czar, Tom Holman, is expected to meet with Mayor Eric Adams Thursday to discuss New York City's role in enforcing the Trump administration's deportation push. This comes after the mayor's office released guidance for city agencies that may be approached by non-local law enforcement. It includes asking visitors to show identification and a judicial warrant. as well as calling agency attorneys. Holman says the mayor has previously promised to cooperate in arresting, quote, public safety threats. I'm hoping we come to an agreement where his officers can help my officers and removing these public safety threats.

While Holman says the vast majority of the 14,000 people arrested nationally since Trump took office have a criminal background, he didn't provide any evidence. He called those arrested without criminal records, quote, collateral damage. New York State policy leaders are trying to make sense of White House directives curtailing DEI efforts. That's diversity, equity, and inclusion. Late last month, President Trump put federal DEI workers on leave, then took aim at state and local DEI efforts. I discussed the future of DEI initiatives with WMYC's Arun Venne-Kal. He's senior reporter of the Race and Justice Unit.

Arun, it seems just a few years ago, that DEI was a big corporate priority. What happened? Yeah, I mean, if we think back to, you know, the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, that was almost five years ago. You saw these mass protests breakout in New York nationwide as well. You know, lots employers at that point signed on to DEI principles

and they vowed to make their hiring more racially equitable. And then we saw this counter movement mobilized around opposition to DEI as well, to affirmative action programs and universities, quite successfully, actually. And I spoke to David Glasgow, who runs the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and belonging at NYU. And he says, if you look at polling DEI initiatives actually do enjoy more support than opposition. But I think what the anti-DEE activists, the elite kind of special interest sort of group

players have done a good job of is framing DEI as anti-merit and devices. and discriminatory and so on. And I think that's trickling down to some extent into the thinking of people. And of course, the president himself is helping shape that thinking. Yeah. A room, what's the outlook in New York?

Well, certainly, New York has its own local politics, its own institutional culture, in some ways Glasgow says, that could make a difference, but only marginally because at the same time, he says, we're talking about a legal landscape that is highly shaped by federal, not state anti-discrimination law and how the Supreme Court interprets it.

And then, of course, there's the impact of the recent executive orders that President Trump issued, which again are also national in their impact. And there's going to be a limited extent to which at a state level, leaders are going to be able to, you know, cord off their states from those impacts. And, Jena, you know, one of the president's executive orders revoked an early order signed by President Lyndon Johnson that required federal. contractors to refrain from employment discrimination. That was signed 60 years ago. So what's happening in workplaces? Will they become more diverse or maybe no?

So I think we're going to see a gap, at least that's what I'm told. Right now we're seeing companies like Apple and Costco stick to their DEI commitments. These are employers who say DIY works for them. Glasgow thinks that will continue in a section of the corporate world. He also sees a future for companies that want to abandon their DEI initiatives. some out of fear facing discrimination claims. He says this dovetails with the Supreme Court decision two years ago that ended race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities that has resulted in a drop in black student admissions at places like Columbia and other selective schools.

So it wouldn't surprise me at all if over the coming years what we see is that the effect at the college level and now the DEI backlash in workplaces leads organizations to sort of wind back some of the progress that has been made and perhaps have even more homogeneous workplaces. By which he means more male and more white. Yeah. You know, Arun, I could only imagine that a lot of employers and hiring managers are probably watching all of this and wondering, you know, how to proceed. So what guidance does Glasgow have for them? Right now, a lot of the heat is on companies that want to maintain their DEI commitments, right? For instance, Costco, getting a lot of pressure from Republican lawmakers who say the company needs to explain why it's

not getting rid of its DEI programs. But Glasgow says his advice for employers is to not over comply with the law. He says companies could pay a price by abandoning DEI. Because in doing that, you might create a workplace culture that is unwelcoming or even toxic to people from marginalized backgrounds and therefore create even more legal risk for yourself just on the other side, right, increasing your risk of getting sued by traditional discrimination plaintiffs. So employers really could be walking a tightrope in the years to come, Jene. That's WMYC's Arun Vannegapal.

Pitchers and catchers for the Mets and Yankees are officially reporting to spring training in Florida. And that means baseball season is inching closer. Coming up, we hype up the season with the new voice of Yankees Radio. The Major League baseball season is right around the corner, and pitchers and catchers for New York's two teams are in Florida for spring training. The Yankees are coming off a devastating World Series loss last year, and the heartache continued for fans after their star player, Juan Soto, defected to crosstown rivals, the Mets.

Nonetheless, fans are looking forward to the coming season. And one thing they can cheer about is their new voice of Yankees' radio, Dave Sims. Here he is in 2021, during his time with the Seattle Mariners, calling a crucial game hit to keep the team's postseason dreams alive. And what a night it was. Then he followed that up with... I'm telling you, hey now, hey now! Hey now, Dave Sims joins me now. And before we get into all the baseball talk, I just want to say congrats on the new job, Dave.

Thank you, Janay. It's a pleasure to be with you. and it's a great honor and privilege to be the new radio voice of the New York Yankees. And furthermore, it's great to be back home at New York City. Hey, all of that is really cool. You know, radio broadcasting can sometimes foster a kind of intimate connection with listeners. It's one of the reasons why I love this work so much. Baseball is the best sport to broadcast on radio because of the pace of the game.

And you mentioned it when you're doing 100 plus games, 150 plus games, on radio for baseball. People will get a feel of who you are and they're going to know your ups and downs, ins and out, they're going to feel your rhythms and everything, they're going to ride with you. Things are going really well. They're going to be pumped up when things are not going quite as well. Sometimes I'll have to try to pick things up. I have to pick myself up there, but I'm picking them up. So it's an interesting relationship. When you look at the history of baseball on the radio, there's so many guys in our industry who are just key people in their particular cities and environments and just really excited about this coming forward.

Yeah. As mentioned, the Yankees are coming off of frustrating end to the World Series. How did the offseason go for the Yankees? Well, they did well. I mean, they lose the sort of. First of all, let me just back up for a second. They lost the World Series. There's, let's see, the Dodgers won.

The Yankees lost, and there's a whole bunch of other teams that were traded places with either. And I can express some frustration because the Mariners last year, we had a heck of a season. Missed the playoffs by one game with a fabulous pitching staff. So when people say, oh, what a downer was to lose the World Series, keep it in perspective, please. But, you know, moving forward, let's go. It's a good team. They added Max Fried, a pitcher.

Devin Williams, a closer. Paul Goldschman at first base looking for a bounceback. He had a great last six weeks of the season. Cody Bellinger, former MVP and rookie of the year. They got a reliever from Cincinnati. This is a good looking ball club talking to Aaron Boone. He talked about this team's going to be a lot more athletic, going to be able to go first to third on base hits,

going to be able to go first to third on base hit. I remember one of the things I said to him was, defensive drills and base running drills, I hope they're main priorities. Prioritized them a lot every year, but this year may have even more focus on it. So we know that the Mets won the battle for Juan Soto and have made some other significant moves during the offseason.

With Steve Cohen at the top, who seems willing to do anything for the team. Do you think the Yankees might now live in the shadow of the Mets when, you know, for so long it seemed the other way around? Well, that's not get too aggressive here. You know what I'm saying? Come on now. You know, Soto's a great player, generational hitter.

They still have some holes to fill. It's a good club. They finished strong last year. They took the Dodgers to the break. I know the tempo and a pulse and how it goes here when you're talking about Yankees and Mets. and respectfully for the Mets. And I know last year the Mets cleaned the Yankees clock

in the season in the Subway Series, and that was last year. This is another campaign. That's sports announcer Dave Sims. He's the new voice for Yankees Radio. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.