Lawfare: The Legal Wars Attorneys General Are Fighting for You With Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison

From the Source Host, Benjamin Carlton, sat down with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison to share how leaders can safeguard the progress we’re making in education, health, entrepreneurship, and culture, so communities can keep thriving.

At the heart of this conversation is a simple truth: our institutions exist to help people realize their aspirations, to learn, to build businesses, to preserve truth, and to pass opportunity forward. When policies or politics create obstacles, we respond with knowledge, coalition, and courage so those aspirations continue to flourish.

What We’re Advancing

• A nation that learns its full history so every child can see themselves in America’s story and every neighbor can better understand one another.

• Enterprising communities: from parents pursuing education to founders growing companies who deserve fair access to resources.

• Institutions with a mission: schools, foundations, nonprofits, museums, banks, and CDFIs—that translate shared values into measurable benefits: stronger neighborhoods, safer communities, and wider opportunity.

What the Law Makes Possible

Ellison reminds leaders that executive orders are policy guidance, not court orders. In the United States, the Constitution, acts of Congress, and the courts create the framework that protects our collective work.

• Congressional appropriations: When Congress funds programs, that support is meant to reach communities.

• Administrative law: Agencies must act within their legal authority and follow transparent processes.

• First Amendment: Philanthropy and nonprofits can express and pursue missions that value inclusion and equal dignity.

• Civil Rights Act of 1964: Programs should welcome eligible people rather than exclude them, while still targeting documented needs.

• Community Reinvestment Act: Financial institutions are expected to serve the communities they’re part of, fueling small-business growth, homeownership, and local stability.

Bottom line: The law equips leaders to keep serving people’s aspirations and to challenge unlawful obstacles when they arise.

What Courage Looks Like (and Works Like)

Ellison’s guidance, translated into everyday leadership moves:

1. Lead with mission clarity. Name the people you serve by their goals: students mastering new histories, entrepreneurs launching companies, families building wealth and show the results you’re producing.

2. Design for welcome. Keep your focus on historically excluded groups while ensuring your criteria are open and fair. That strengthens both legality and impact.

3. Stand in coalition. If your institution is named or nudged, don’t face it alone. Convene peers, share counsel, and align strategy. Collective backbone protects individual organizations.

4. Prepare, don’t panic. Work with counsel and (when appropriate) your state attorney general to have facts, briefs, and messages ready.

5. Keep educating the public. Durable wins come from communities that understand what’s at stake and why inclusion lifts everyone.

“This fight will be won in the hearts of people who yearn for democracy and true history.” — Keith Ellison

A practical playbook for philanthropy & nonprofits

Philanthropy is a lever for long-term community success. If you care about strong schools, thriving small businesses, and honest history, now is a high-impact moment to lean in:

1. Stand together, publicly. If a “list” exists of targeted groups, convene it. Shared counsel, shared facts, shared spine.

2. Anchor your stance in the law.

   • Appropriations law / separation of powers: The executive can’t claw back funds Congress already allocated.

   • Administrative Procedure Act: Agencies must act within their authority and follow proper process.

   • First Amendment: Government cannot punish private organizations for their viewpoints (e.g., a commitment to inclusion).

   • Civil Rights Act of 1964: Ensure programs don’t exclude qualified people—design for inclusion, not exclusion.

3. Tune your program design. Keep mission focus (e.g., supporting historically excluded entrepreneurs), but avoid rigid gates. If someone qualifies on the merits, serve them.

4. Retain counsel and draft now. Don’t wait for a letter. Prepare briefs and talking points; align your board.

“If your mission is good and just, stick by it and organize to defend it...Buckling under…is not a winning strategy…once you start dancing with the devil, the devil’s gonna want to dance some more.”

His message to institutions: don’t mistake retreat for safety.

Why Optimism Is Practical

Across the country, people are showing up: in town halls, state capitols, classrooms, boardrooms, and courtrooms, because they believe in each other. That energy is building smarter policy, fairer access to capital, and a richer, truer American story.

Ellison’s personal moment of joy-celebrating his daughter passing the bar-underscores what this moment is really about: opening doors so the next generation can lead.

Keep Building the Next Narrative

If you’re a nonprofit leader, funder, educator, or capital provider, your work is expanding freedom and opportunity-exactly what communities ask of us. Stay clear on mission, stay tight with your partners, and use the law and your voice to keep doors open.

Listen to the full conversation and get practical tools: Subscribe at nextnarrative.org and share this episode of From the Source with your board and team. The more of us who move in alignment, the more people can learn, build, and belong.