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Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Janae Pierre. US Border czar Tom Homan 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. Homan says the mayor has previously promised to cooperate in arresting "public safety threats".

Tom Homan: I'm hoping we come to an agreement where his officers can help my officers in removing these public safety threats.

Janae Pierre: While Homan 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 "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 WNYC's Arun Venugopal. 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?

Arun Venugopal: If we think back to the wake of the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, that was almost five years ago. You saw these mass protests break out in New York, nationwide as well. Lots of employers at that point signed on to DEI principles and they vowed to make their hiring more racially equitable. Then we saw this countermovement mobilize around opposition to DEI as well as to affirmative action programs and universities, quite successfully, actually. 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.

David Glasgow: I think what the anti-DEI activists, the elite kind of special interest sort of group players, have done a good job of is framing DEI as anti-merit and divisive and discriminatory and so on. I think that's trickling down to some extent into the thinking of people.

Arun Venugopal: Of course, the president himself is helping shape that thinking.

Janae Pierre: Arun, what's the outlook in New York?

Arun Venugopal: 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.

David Glasgow: Then, of course, there's the impact of the recent executive orders that President Trump issued, which again, are also national in their impact. There's going to be a limited extent to which, at a state level, leaders are going to be able to cordon off their states from those impacts.

Arun Venugopal: Janae, 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.

Janae Pierre: What's happening in workplaces? Will they become more diverse or maybe no?

Arun Venugopal: 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 DEI 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 of 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.

David Glasgow: 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.

Arun Venugopal: By which he means more male and more white.

Janae Pierre: Arun, I can only imagine that a lot of employers and hiring managers are probably watching all of this and wondering how to proceed. What guidance does Glasgow have for them?

Arun Venugopal: Right now, a lot of the heat is on companies that want to maintain their DEI commitments. For instance, Costco is 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 overcomply with the law. He says companies could pay a price by abandoning DEI.

David Glasgow: 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, increasing your risk of getting sued by traditional discrimination plaintiffs.

Arun Venugopal: Employers really could be walking a tightrope in the years to come, Janae.

Janae Pierre: That's WNYC's Arun Venugopal. 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.

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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. 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 post season dreams alive.

Dave Sims: Base hit left field. Here comes JP. Bauers scores. JP scores. Mitch Haniger. What a night. What a night.

Janae Pierre: What a night it was. Then he followed that up with--

Dave Sims: I'm telling you. Hey now, hey now, hey now.

Janae Pierre: Hey now. Dave Sims joins me now. Before we get into all the baseball talk, I just want to say congrats on the new job, Dave.

Dave Sims: Thank you, Janae. 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. Furthermore, it's great to be back home in New York City.

Janae Pierre: Hey, all of that is really cool. 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.

Dave Sims: Baseball's the best sport to broadcast on radio because of the pace of the game. 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'll 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 have to try to pick things up. I have to pick myself up there by picking them up. 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 just keep people in their particular cities and environments, and just really excited about this coming forward.

Janae Pierre: As mentioned, the Yankees are coming off a frustrating end to the World Series. How did the off season go for the Yankees?

Dave Sims: Well, they did well. I mean, they lose to Soto. Well, first of all, let me just back up for a second. They lost the World Series. Let's see, the Dodgers won, the Yankees lost, and there's a whole bunch of other teams that were traded places with either. 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.

When people say, "Oh, what a downer it was to lose the World Series," keep it in perspective, please. Moving forward, let's go. It's a good team. They added Max Fried, a pitcher, Devin Williams, a closer, Paul Goldschmidt at first base, looking for a bounce back. He had a great last six weeks of the season. Cody Bellinger, a 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 score from second a lot easier. I remember one of the things I said to him, I said, "Defensive drills and base running drills, I hope they're main priorities this year. Prioritize them a lot every year," but this year may have even more focus on it.

Janae Pierre: We know that the Mets won the battle for Juan Soto and have made some other significant moves during the off season. 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, for so long, it seemed the other way around?

Dave Sims: Let's not get too aggressive here. You know what I'm saying? Come on now. 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 the pulse and how it goes here when you talk about Yankees and Mets, and respectfully for the Mets. I know last year, the Mets cleaned the Yankees' clock in a season in the Subway Series. Hey, that was last year. This is another campaign.

Janae Pierre: That's sports announcer, Dave Sims. He's the new voice for Yankees' radio. Thanks for listening to NYC NOW from WNYC. I'm Janae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.

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