CNN Quotes Professor Afsharipour on Corporate Reluctance to Back LGBTQ+ Events

Professor Afra Afsharipour spoke to CNN for a March 31 report on companies retreating from sponsorships and other support for LGBTQ+ pride events amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts via executive orders.

Although executive orders “don’t have the force of law,” Afsharipour told CNN, “I think the calculus by the Trump administration is – and they’ve done this with the way that they have targeted lots of different institutions – they’re just trying to scare companies.”

Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law Afra Afsharipour’s areas of research include corporate law and governance, mergers and acquisitions, transactional law, and the legal profession. From 2018-2024, she served as Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. Her scholarship has appeared in the Columbia Law Review, University of Chicago Law Review, Minnesota Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and UC Davis Law Review, among other leading publications.