The Greater Houston LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce has said it may sue the Trump administration after the chamber was forced to relocate its annual event at the Federal Reserve Bank of Houston last week because of Trump’s executive order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The chamber said the executive order violated its constitutional rights to free speech.

The chamber had planned on holding its second annual Thrive Small Business Summit & Matchmaker event at the federal bank last Thursday. However, the bank forced the event to relocate fewer than 30 hours before its start, telling the chamber that it could no longer host because of Trump’s order banning the federal government from supporting any activities supportive of DEI, Advocatereported. Trump’s order didn’t specifically define what constitutes a DEI initiative.

“Our operating understanding was that the Thrive event was permissible because of its business and economic development focus,” the bank’s email to the chamber’s leadership read. “Unfortunately, this evening, we learned that we could not host the event and remain in compliance with the executive order. We deeply regret having to make this change.”

The event relocated to the Hilton Garden Inn/Home 2 Suites Medical Center. There, over 130 small business owners, support organizations, LGBTQ+ employee resource groups, and supplier diversity professionals attended panels, breakout sessions, and a “matchmaker” event to connect with one another, the aforementioned publication noted.

But now that the event has concluded, the chamber’s cofounder, president, and CEO Tammi Wallace has said that her organization may sue the Trump administration for violating her group’s First Amendment rights to free speech.

Her group could be one of several LGBTQ+ groups to sue Trump over his DEI order in the coming months. Lambda Legal and other pro-LGBTQ+ civil rights organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center condemned his order and have suggested possible litigation over it.

Trump’s anti-DEI orders “share many of the same flaws as the executive order we enjoined last time around,” Camilla Taylor, deputy legal director for litigation at Lambda Legal, told Bloomberg Law. Lambda Legal represented several groups that challenged Trump’s 2020 anti-DEI orders. Lambda Legal said that Trump’s latest order attempts to ban DEI “without defining it, imposing a sort of Orwellian trolling on anyone who takes any steps to address bias.”

Wallace helped co-found the Greater Houston LGBTQ+ Chamber of Commerce in 2016 after not seeing LGBTQ+ businesses represented in the city’s landscape, she told Advocate. Since then, her organization has affiliated itself with the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce and is the fourth such chamber in Texas; the others being in Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio.

“These executive orders are hurting diverse communities,” Wallace told the aforementioned publication. “It brings up the trauma and pain we experience as a community, just because of who we are and who we love.”

“We are part of the fabric of the community,” she added. “When diverse business owners succeed, we all succeed, and our economy wins.”