US President Donald Trump's administration moved on Tuesday to end affirmative action in federal contracts and ordered federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) employees to be placed on paid leave and about finally canceled.
The movements follow the order of action Trump signed on his first day orders a major elimination of the federal government's diversity and inclusion programs that could touch everything from anti-bias training to funding for small farmers and homeowners. Trump has called the programs “discriminatory” and called for the rollback of “merit-based” hiring.
The executive order on affirmative action reverses an order issued by US president Lyndon Johnson, and bans DEI programs by federal contractors and grantees.
He is using one of the main tools used by the Biden administration to promote DEI programs throughout the private sector – pushing their use by federal contractors – to eliminate them now.
Office of Personnel Management in a memo Tuesday groups ordered DEI office staff to be placed on paid leave by 5 p.m. ET, Wednesday and all DEI-focused public web pages taken down by the same deadline. Several federal departments had taken down the web pages even before the memo.
Agencies are also required to suspend any DEI-related training and terminate any related contracts, and federal employees are asked to report to Trump's Office of Personnel Management if they suspect any program related to DEI is renamed to oppose its purpose within 10 days or face “negative consequences.”
By Thursday, federal agencies are being asked to compile a list of federal DEI offices and employees as of Election Day. By next Friday, they are expected to develop a plan to implement a “force reduction action” against those federal employees.
The memo was first reported by CBS News.
The movement comes after him Monday's executive order Joe Biden accused former US president Joe Biden of imposing “discriminatory” programs on “virtually every aspect of the federal government” through “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, to the called DEI.
The move is the first salvo in an aggressive campaign to undermine DEI efforts across the country, including leveraging the US Department of Justice and other agencies to investigate private companies. which follow training and hiring practices that conservative critics consider discriminatory against non-minority groups such as white men.
An aggressive campaign
The executive order picks up where Trump's first administration left off: One of Trump's last acts in his first term was an executive order banning federal agency contractors and received federal funding from conducting anti-bias training that addressed concepts such as systemic racism.
Biden quickly rescinded that order on his first day in office and issued a pair of executive orders — now suspended — outlining a plan to promote DEI across 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 calmer ground in the corporate world .
Prominent companies from Walmart to Facebook have already halted some of their diversity practices in response to Trump's election and conservative-backed lawsuits against them.
