Up First from NPR - New Gaza Aid Group Faces Criticism, Harvard President Speaks Out, DEI Rollbacks

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Israel has lifted its restrictions on humanitarian aid. A new U.S.-aid group is now preparing to bring food to Gaza, where hunger is widespread. But the UN and other groups have raised questions about this new entity. The Trump administration has targeted Harvard University over a number of issues. Steve Inskeep sat down with Harvard President Alan Garber. And thousands of positions in the area of diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) have been eliminated across corporate America.Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Carrie Kahn, Reena Advani, Pallavi Gogoi, HJ Mai and Lisa Thomson. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis and our technical director is Carleigh Strange.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Humanitarian aid is once again getting into Gaza. After blocking aid for months, Israel lifted its ban last week. But there are questions about a new U.S.-backed aid group. What do we know about this group? I'm Amay Martinez, that is Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. The Trump administration has targeted Harvard University policies, but its president, Alan Garber, says it's about something bigger. There are people who would like to see these universities brought down.

Steve Inske spoke with Garber and he'll tell us what he's learned. And diversity, equity and inclusion programs are being eliminated across corporate America. That has led to thousands of layoffs. Where do we go from here with DEI? Stay with us, we'll give you the news you need to start your day. This is Eric Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now

with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what. To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in.

This American life, wherever you get your podcasts. Just movies. Great conversation makes for a great party. But how do you ask the questions that really make the room come alive? Well, here at LifeKit, we've got you. What is a path you almost took but didn't? On our latest episode, how to ask the magical questions

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A new group backed by the US is beginning to bring food to Gaza, where hunger is widespread and extreme. But the group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, is facing suspicion and growing criticism from the UN, which is running a separate effort to bring aid to Gaza. The group's own director resigned, saying the program is not humanitarian. Israel says this program, as well as its intensified airstrikes on Gaza, are key to its overall strategy to defeat Hamas. With me now to tell us more about this is NPR's Daniel Estrin. He's on the line from Tel Aviv. Welcome, Daniel. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you, Michelle. First of all, what food is getting into Gaza right now? Israel started letting in limited quantities after a nearly three-month total ban. There was intense pressure from the US to let food in because of malnutrition and warnings of a famine. But just this effort to get a little amount of food

into Gaza has been chaotic. The United Nations World Food Program delivered flour and supplies to bakeries. And just a couple days ago, they were overwhelmed by hungry crowds and looters. There were reports of a shootout. And the bakeries shut down. And eight officials I'm speaking with are concerned that this could be a preview of what's to come as this new U.S.-backed group gets ready to deliver food to big crowds of hungry people.

So tell us more about this U.S-backed group and the controversy surrounding it. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is a new entity. It involves American contractors. And instead of having food distributed in hundreds of points across Gaza, this group is going to be restricting that to four new zones with Israeli soldiers guarding the perimeter and private contractors giving out boxes of food to families once a week. And it says that it's begun distributing its first food boxes at one site yesterday, and

it's going to be ramping up activities. But all the major aid groups in Gaza and the United Nations are refusing to cooperate. Jake Wood is the US Marine veteran who directed the group. He abruptly resigned just as they were getting started. He said the plan cannot follow principles of humanity and neutrality. And there really is not a lot of transparency about this group, Michelle.

A private US security company run by a former CIA officer is involved. It's posted a job posting online saying they'll train people on the job. And the group won't say where its funding is coming from. Israel's opposition leader is alleging that Israel is secretly funding the group. So so many questions about this group that aren't being answered, but the US and Israel are backing it. So tell us more about that. Like, why is that? What's the goal here? It's really an idea

that was devised by Israeli military veterans since the early days of the Gaza war to separate civilians into guarded zones, to feed those civilians, and to starve Hamas. Israeli officials have also said publicly that the aim here is to get Palestinians to move south near Egypt as a step toward moving people to other countries. Israel's allies in Europe say that would be forcible mass displacement and they oppose it. And Hamas is warning Palestinians not to take food from this new US-backed group. So it puts Palestinians in a really difficult position.

They're starving. They're telling us that some would refuse to take part and others, they're desperate and they would go get that food. So before we let you go, can you briefly update us on ceasefire negotiations? There does seem to be some movement toward a temporary ceasefire and a hostage deal. There's been a flurry of statements from Israel and Hamas yesterday and today. An Israeli negotiating team is expected to be in Cairo today, but it is too soon to be optimistic.

That is, NPR's Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv. Daniel, thank you. You're welcome. The president of Harvard University is defending his decision to sue the Trump administration twice. Harvard sued once when the Trump administration cut off billions of dollars of research grants and contracts. The university sued again late last week when the administration banned it

from hosting international students. A judge temporarily blocked that, so foreign students stay for now. President Alan Garber spoke about this in a video interview with Steven Ski. We need to be firm in our commitments to what we stand for. And what we stand for, I believe, is education, pursuit of the truth. When we fail in that, then we can expect to be attacked.

And Steve is on the line with us. Just wanted to tell us more about his conversation with President Alan Garber. Good morning, Steve. Good morning, Michelle. So Harvard certainly is being attacked. How does the president of Harvard see this ongoing battle with the White House? Well both the Harvard lawsuit and Alan Garber contend the administration is going after something bigger than just

international students. Garber says he doesn't fully know the motives but he does know some conservatives want to reshape elite higher education over issues like diversity, equity, and inclusion. And that is why insofar as there are people who would like to see these universities brought down in some sense, I think that their fire is misdirected, because we have a common interest

in making the nation, and indeed the world, a better place. In this case, Michelle, the Department of Homeland Security says it banned international students from Harvard because the school blatantly refused to demand to give information about them. Garber insists Harvard gave information and DHS lashed out anyway.

And Harvard describes that as well as the cutoff in funding as an effort to gain power over a private school. Why cut off research funding? Sure, it hurts Harvard, but it hurts the country because after all, the research funding is not a gift. The research funding is given to universities and other research institutions to carry out work that the federal government designates as high priority work.

Shutting off that work does not help the country, even as it punishes Harvard. And it is hard to see the link between that and, say, anti-Semitism. He mentioned anti-Semitism. That's certainly something that President Trump has been talking about, even as recently as yesterday. You know, Harvard has been criticized by statements made by some students after the October 7th attacks in Israel. How does President Garber respond to that?

He accepts a lot of that criticism. The president himself is Jewish. He says some students felt shunned on campus if they didn't take what was seen as a proper view of Israel. He's trying to correct that. Okay, but what about that? So there is a broader conservative critique. What does he say about that?

He accepts some of it, said he wants to encourage, for example, freer debate on campus, and then he turned that idea to make a point of his own. We shouldn't be in an echo chamber. Everyone in our community needs to hear other views. And let me add, that's one reason why it is so important for us to be able to have international students on our campus. There is so much that they contribute to our environment and they enable everyone else to open their minds. Harvard says eliminating foreign students would erase a quarter of the student body. Now the court order means nothing happens for now as you mentioned,

but the university faces a very uncertain court battle. Steve, thanks. Glad to do it. Corporate America is running away from diversity, equity, and inclusion or DEI and also from the people hired to do this work. This marks a sharp reversal from five years ago when the murder of George Floyd and the public outcry that followed sent companies racing to staff up. Now, NPR is the first report on exactly how many of those jobs have been lost. NPR business correspondent, Marie Aspin, has the exclusive.

Now, we've been hearing about companies ending their DEI policies for years now. What's new? Right, some of the biggest US employers, Walmart, Target, Amazon, have announced that they're ending some DEI policies for years now, what's new? Right, some of the biggest US employers, Walmart, Target, Amazon, have announced that they're ending some DEI policies. And A, companies have been retreating for a few years now. Back in 2023, the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action.

And that same summer, Bud Light faced a conservative backlash after it hired a transgender influencer for a marketing video. That all made companies start worrying about the legal and financial risks of talking about DEI. And then President Trump was reelected and issued executive orders against what he calls illegal DEI. That increased the political risks. For example, just this month, we saw Verizon tell a federal agency that it would end many of its DEI policies right before the government approved a big $20 billion deal for Verizon.

So for months, I've been covering this drumbeat of news about companies ending DEI, and I started wondering what that meant for all of the people affected, the people they hired to do this work. So what'd you dig up? The numbers are pretty bleak. More than 2,600 jobs in diversity or DEI have been eliminated in the last couple of years. That's more than 10% of the jobs that existed at the start of 2023. Now these are numbers from a data analysis that a firm called Reveleo Labs did exclusively for NPR.

And it found that this was a dramatic change from five years ago. After George Floyd was murdered, there was this huge rush for companies to hire chief diversity officers and other people with experience in this kind of specialized field. But now these people are being reassigned or having their jobs renamed or in some cases being laid off. So this is a really steep loss of a lot of jobs and it's affecting thousands of people who are trained and experienced in this area. What are these workers telling you about how this backlash affects them?

It's been pretty hard. For this story, I spent a lot of time talking to Candace Birdsong Williams. She was a top executive with almost two decades of experience in this field, doing things like creating mentorship programs to help underrepresented employees get more visibility and opportunities at the office. But she was laid off from her last company last summer, and she hasn't been able to find a new job. This is what Birdsong Williams told me when I visited her at home in Raleigh this spring. I was like, oh, I'll bounce back quickly. I've been in interviews and they're like, okay, we're no longer going to rehire for

the, we're no longer going to staff this role. And so that's when I knew this isn't the same environment that it was years ago. And it's just been pretty tough. We tell a lot more of her story in a new digital feature that published today at npr.org. Now Birdsong Williams is just one person, of course, but now we know that there are thousands of people who have been living through this very changing and now very politicized job market. That's MPR's Maria Aspin. Maria, thanks for telling us about this.

Thanks so much. And that's Up First for Tuesday, May 27th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Ian Martinez. The MPR app lets you keep public radio right in your pocket. You'll find a mix of local, national, and international news, plus the best podcasts from the NPR network. So go download the NPR app in your app store today. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Carrie Khan, Rina Advani, Pallavi Gogoi, H.J. Mai, and Lisa Thompson.

It was produced by Ziyad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hines, and our technical director is Carly Strange. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow.