U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration moved Tuesday to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off.
The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs that could touch on everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and insisted on restoring strictly “merit-based” hiring.
The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by U.S. president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients.
It’s using one of the key tools utilized by the Biden administration to promote DEI programs across the private sector — pushing their use by federal contractors — to now eradicate them.
The Office of Personnel Management in a Tuesday memo directed agencies to place DEI office staffers on paid leave by 5 p.m. ET, Wednesday and take down all public DEI-focused web pages by the same deadline. Several federal departments had removed the web pages even before the memorandum.
Agencies must also cancel any DEI-related training and end any related contracts, and federal workers are being asked to report to Trump’s Office of Personnel Management if they suspect any DEI-related program has been renamed to obfuscate its purpose within 10 days or face “adverse consequences.”
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered all federal workers on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs to be put on paid leave this week, calling the programs ‘dangerous, demeaning and immoral.’ Former chief DEI officer Gina Abercrombie-Winstanley says the move from Trump shows a ‘lack of understanding’ about what DEI programs are.
By Thursday, federal agencies are directed to compile a list of federal DEI offices and workers as of Election Day. By next Friday, they are expected to develop a plan to execute a “reduction-in-force action” against those federal workers.
The memo was first reported by CBS News.
The move comes after Monday’s executive order accused former U.S. president Joe Biden of forcing “discrimination” programs into “virtually all aspects of the federal government” through “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, known as DEI.
That step is the first salvo in an aggressive campaign to upend DEI efforts nationwide, including leveraging the U.S. Justice Department and other agencies to investigate private companies pursuing training and hiring practices that conservative critics consider discriminatory against non-minority groups such as white men.
Aggressive campaign
The executive order picks up where Trump’s first administration left off: One of Trump’s final acts during his first term was an executive order banning federal agency contractors and recipients of federal funding from conducting anti-bias training that addressed concepts like systemic racism.
Biden promptly rescinded that order on his first day in office and issued a pair of executive orders — now rescinded — outlining a plan to promote DEI throughout the federal government.
While many changes may take months or even years to implement, Trump’s new anti-DEI agenda is more aggressive than his first and comes amid more amenable terrain in the corporate world.
Prominent companies from Walmart to Facebook have already scaled back or ended some of their diversity practices in response to Trump’s election and conservative-backed lawsuits against them.
