WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump the administration orders that all diversity, equity and inclusion staff be placed on paid leave and that agencies develop plans to lay them off, according to a memo released Tuesday by the Office of Personnel Management.
The memo follows an executive order signed by Trump on the first day ordering a radical dismantling diversity and inclusion programs from the federal government that could touch on everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners.
The memo directs 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 ministries had removed the web pages even before the memorandum. Agencies must also cancel any DEI-related training and terminate any associated contracts, and federal employees are urged to report to Trump’s Office of Personnel Management if they suspect that a DEI-related program has been renamed to Obfuscate your goal within 10 days or face “adverse consequences.”
By Thursday, federal agencies must compile a list of DEI offices and federal employees as of Election Day. By next Friday, they are expected to develop a list to execute 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 imposing programs of “discrimination” in “virtually every aspect of the federal government” through “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, known as DEI.
The step is the first salvo in an aggressive campaign to thwart DEI efforts nationwide, including relying on the Justice Department and other agencies to investigate private companies that pursue practices training and hiring that conservative critics view as 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 acts during his first term was a decree prohibit federal agency contractors and recipients of federal funding from providing anti-bias training addressing concepts such as systemic racism. Biden quickly canceled this order on his first day in office and issued two executive orders – now rescinded – outlining a plan to promote DEI across the federal government.
Although many changes can take months or even years to implement, Trump’s new anti-DEI agenda is more aggressive than the first and comes on much more favorable ground in the business world. Prominent companies from Walmart to Facebook have already reduced or ended some of their diversity practices in response to Trump’s election and Conservative-backed lawsuits against them.
Here’s a look at some of the policies and programs Trump will aim to dismantle:
Diversity Offices, Training and Accountability
Trump’s order will immediately undo Biden’s broad efforts to embed diversity and inclusion practices in the federal workforce, the nation’s largest at about 2.4 million people.
Biden had directed all agencies to develop a diversity plan, publish annual progress reports and provide data for a government-wide dashboard to track demographic trends in hiring and promotions. The administration also established a Council of Diversity Officers to oversee implementation of the DEI plan. The government released its first DEI progress report in 2022 that included demographic data on the federal workforce, which overall is about 60% white and 55% male, and more than 75% white and over 60% men at senior management level.
Trump’s executive order will eliminate equity plans developed by federal agencies and end any roles or functions dedicated to promoting diversity. This will include eliminating initiatives such as DEI-related training or diversity targets in performance reviews.
Federal grant and benefit programs
Trump’s order sets the stage for an aggressive but bureaucratically complicated overhaul of billions of dollars in federal spending that conservative activists say unfairly favors racial minorities and women.
The order does not specify which programs it will target, but requires a government-wide review to ensure contracts and grants are consistent with the Trump administration’s anti-DEI stance. He also proposes that the federal government settle ongoing lawsuits against federal programs that benefit historically underserved communities, some of which date back decades.
Trump’s executive order constitutes “a seismic shift and a complete shift in the focus and direction of the federal government,” said Dan Lennington, an associate board member of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which has filed several lawsuits against federal programs. The institute recently released an influential report listing dozens of programs that the Trump administration should consider dismantling, such as credits for minority farmers or emergency aid for majority-black neighborhoods.
He acknowledged that it might be difficult to dismantle some well-established programs. For example, the Treasury Department implements housing and other assistance programs through block grants to states that have their own methods for implementing diversity criteria.
Pay equity and hiring practices
It is unclear whether the Trump administration will target all initiatives stemming from Biden’s DEI executive order.
For example, the Biden administration has banned federal agencies from asking about an applicant’s salary history when setting 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 release the final settlementand Trump should embark on a similar rulemaking process, including a notice and comment period, to undo it, said Chiraag Bains, former deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council under Biden and now a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings. Metro.
Noreen Farrell, executive director of the women’s rights group Equal Rights Advocates, said she hopes the Trump administration “doesn’t go out of its way to undo the rule,” which she said has proven popular in some states and cities that have enacted similar policies.
And Biden’s DEI plan included some initiatives with bipartisan support, Bains said. For example, he charged the Executive Council of Diversity Officers with expanding federal employment opportunities for people with criminal records. The initiative stems from the Fair Chance Act, which Trump signed into law in 2019 and which prohibits federal agencies and contractors from asking questions about an applicant’s criminal history before a conditional job offer is made.
Bains said that was the goal of Biden’s DEI policies: ensuring the federal government was structured to include historically marginalized communities, not instituting “reverse discrimination against white men.”
Despite the sweeping language of Trump’s order, Farrell said, “the reality of implementing such massive structural changes is far more complex.”
“Federal agencies have deeply ingrained policies and procedures that cannot be turned off overnight,” she added.
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