President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday moved to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion employees be placed on paid leave and eventually 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 everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners. Trump called the programs “discriminatory” and insisted on restoring hiring strictly “based on merit.”
The affirmative action executive order rescinds an order issued by President Lyndon Johnson, limiting DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients. It’s using one of the main tools the Biden administration uses to promote DEI programs across the private sector — pushing federal contractors to use them — to eliminate it now.
The Office of Personnel Management in a Tuesday memo directed agencies to place DEI office staff on paid leave by 5 p.m. Wednesday and to remove all public DEI-focused web pages by the same deadline. Several federal departments had removed web pages even before the memo. Agencies must also cancel any DEI-related training and terminate any related contracts, and federal employees are required to report to Trump’s Office of Personnel Management if they suspect any DEI-related program to be renamed to obscure its purpose within 10 days or face “severe consequences.” “
By Thursday, federal agencies are required to compile a list of federal DEI offices and those working in them as of Election Day. By next Friday, they are expected to develop a plan to implement a “reduction in force action” against these federal workers.
The memo was first reported by CBS News.
The move comes after Monday’s executive order accused former President Joe Biden of forcing “discrimination” programs into “virtually all aspects of the federal government” through “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs known as DEI.
The move is the first salvo in an aggressive campaign to undermine DEI efforts nationwide, including tapping the Justice Department and other agencies to investigate private companies that follow training and hiring practices that conservative critics consider discriminatory against non-minority groups such as white men.
The executive order picks up where the first Trump administration left off: One of Trump’s final actions during his first term was an executive order prohibiting federal agency contractors and recipients of federal funding from conducting anti-bias training that addresses concepts such as systemic racism. Biden immediately rescinded that order on his first day in office and issued a pair of executive orders — now rescinded — outlining a plan to boost DEI throughout the federal government.
While many of the changes could take months or even years to implement, Trump’s new anti-DEI agenda is more aggressive than his first and comes amid more manageable 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 the conservative-backed lawsuits against them.
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Here’s a look at some of the policies and programs Trump will aim to dismantle:
Offices of Diversity, Training and Accountability
Trump’s order would immediately thwart Biden’s wide-ranging effort to embed diversity and inclusion practices in the federal workforce, the largest in the country at about 2.4 million people.
Biden had tasked all agencies with developing a diversity plan, issuing annual progress reports, and contributing data to a government-wide dashboard to track demographic trends in hiring and promotions. The administration also created a Council of Chief Diversity Officers to oversee implementation of the DEI plan. The government released its first progress report on DEI in 2022 that included demographic data for the federal workforce, which is about 60% white and 55% male overall, and more than 75% white and more than 60% male at the senior executive level.
Trump’s executive order will cancel equity plans developed by federal agencies and end any roles or offices dedicated to promoting diversity. It will include eliminating initiatives such as DEI-related training or diversity goals in performance reviews.
Federal grant and benefit programs
Trump’s order paves the way for a comprehensive, but bureaucratically complex, overhaul of billions of dollars in federal spending that conservative activists claim unfairly favors racial minorities and women.
The order does not specify which programs it will target but mandates a government-wide review to ensure contracts and grants are consistent with the Trump administration’s anti-DEI stance. It also suggests that the federal government settle ongoing lawsuits against federal programs that benefit historically underserved communities, including some that date back decades.
Trump’s executive order is “a seismic shift and a complete change in the focus and direction of the federal government,” said Dan Linnington, a vice chancellor at the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which has filed several lawsuits against federal programs. The institute recently released an influential report listing dozens of programs the Trump administration should consider dismantling, such as credits for minority farmers or emergency relief aid for majority-Black neighborhoods.
He acknowledged that dismantling some well-established programs may be difficult. For example, the Treasury Department implements housing and other assistance programs through block grants to states that have their own ways of implementing diversity standards.
Equal pay and employment practices
It is not clear whether the Trump administration will target every initiative stemming from Biden’s DEI executive order.
For example, the Biden administration has barred federal agencies from asking about an applicant’s salary history when determining compensation, a practice that many civil rights activists say perpetuates pay disparities between women and people of color.
It took the Biden administration three years to issue the final regulations, and Trump would have to embark on a similar rulemaking process, including a notice-and-comment period, to rescind them, said Chirag Baines, a former White House deputy director. Council on Domestic Policy under Biden and is now a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Metro Institution.
Noreen Farrell, executive director of the advocacy group Feminism Rights Advocates, said she hopes the Trump administration will make “no effort to repeal this rule,” which she said has proven popular in some states and cities that have enacted the law. Similar policies.
Biden’s DEI plan included some initiatives with bipartisan support, Baines said. For example, the Executive Council of Chief Diversity Officers has been tasked with expanding federal employment opportunities for those with criminal records. The initiative stems from the Fair Chance Act, which Trump signed into law in 2019 and bars federal agencies and contractors from asking about an applicant’s criminal history before making a conditional job offer.
That’s what Biden’s policies on DEI were about: ensuring the federal government is structured to include historically marginalized communities, not imposing “reverse discrimination against white men,” Baines said.
Despite the sweeping language of Trump’s order, Farrell said, “The reality of implementing such massive structural changes is much more complex.”
“Federal agencies have deeply ingrained policies and procedures that cannot simply be stopped overnight,” she added.
