DEIB COMMITTEE REPORT 2026

The committee started the year creating an “observer” system to post a page on the LWVF web site to let our community know how local entities are doing with Diversity in the current climate. We have results on the web page now that showed most of our local institutions, local banks, institutions and churches are doing well with maintaining an emphasis on DEI.

We next began an effort led by Eileen Mattingly in which we put together a three-page document on free places that can provide legal assistance for immigrants. We sent that to the entire LWVF members to use and provided copies to other sites including last summer at the information desk at the Falmouth Farmers’ Market.

In the fall the committee held a DEI discussion for LWVF members with professional trainer, Seyana Mawusi entitled “Everyday every way – Developing Equity and Inclusion (DEI)”. Diversity is not about race; it’s about marginalized people who currently don’t have a seat at the table. But that seat requires using it and being heard according to Dr. Mawusi. She spent the last part of her talk describing the current impact of weaponization of DEI. How many in the nation today use it as a political gain to silence others and to exclude and not include people at the table.

As the United States and the town of Falmouth mount celebrations to markthe achievement of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is important to remember that there were nations on this land long before Europeans arrived. On April 19, the League of Women Voters of Falmouth sponsored a talk by Melissa Ferretti, chair of the Herring Pond Wampanoag tribe. With more than 40 in attendance, she said state and federal governments can’t grant sovereignty to members of the tribe; they are born with it. She spent much of her talk discussing the earlier taking of their land and the current effort for the “Land Back Movement.” She noted three parcels the tribe had gotten back and for them “the land is alive and we care for it.”