President Donald Trump began scaling back equal opportunity programs with two executive orders on his first day in the White House. In doing so, he also repealed a 60-year-old executive order that had implemented equality and diversity programs in the United States.
Here's more about how Trump is dismantling federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, which he calls "radical," "illegal" and "discriminatory."
Two of the 26 executive orders signed by Trump on Monday were related to this: One called for the repeal of federal DEI programs and the other called for reforms to federal hiring.
In an executive order titled "Ending Aggressive and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferences," Trump declared that Joe Biden's administration is "enforcing illegal and unethical discriminatory programs."
DEI, also known as DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access), refers to a set of measures and frameworks within organizations designed to make themselves more inclusive and prevent the impact of historically disadvantaged communities discrimination.
DEI’s core values include:
The executive order states that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), with assistance from the Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), must now work to end DEI programs operating within the federal government.
To this end, federal employment practices, union contracts, and training policies or programs will be subject to formal review.
Trump also signed another order on Monday called "Reforming Federal Hiring Processes and Restoring Merit in Government Service." It noted that current federal hiring practices are flawed and no longer focus on merit or "dedication to the Constitution."
The order requires federal agency leaders to develop a federal hiring plan within 120 days of the order's issuance to revise the way federal employees are hired or fired to emphasize merit-based decisions rather than political considerations. The order adds that federal hiring programs should "prevent the hiring of individuals on the basis of race, sex, or religion."
As far as the private sector is concerned, on Tuesday, Trump also issued a separate presidential action — rather than an executive order — titled “Ending Unlawful Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.”
It mentions "encouraging the private sector to end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences" and directs all federal agencies to each identify up to nine public companies or other entities that may be subject to civil investigations.
The action also says agencies will be asked to "investigate" private companies, nonprofits and associations, as well as large foundations and universities with endowments worth more than $1 billion that may adopt DEI practices.
Trump's executive order on the DEI program states, "Executive Order 11246 (Equal Employment Opportunity) of September 24, 1965 is hereby revoked."
The Equal Employment Opportunity Order (PDF) was signed by Lyndon B. Johnson, the Democratic president from 1963 to 1969. The order prohibits federal contractors from discriminating in employment decisions based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
It also calls for affirmative action, a policy that favors individuals who have historically been disadvantaged in job opportunities. The concept of affirmative action was first introduced in 1961 by Democratic President John F. Kennedy. Johnson's 1965 executive order was opposed by segregationists and Republicans who believed in segregated spaces based on race.
The order was signed to prevent employment discrimination against women and minorities. It comes amid America's burgeoning civil rights movement, which marked the country's emergence of identity politics after a series of mass protests and civil disobedience, mostly against black people and women.
In 1964, a year before Executive Order 11246, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which also prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. In 1965, African Americans finally gained the right to vote through the Voting Rights Act.
Federal DEI staff are professionals, such as trainers in the Office of Diversity. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) said it is unclear how many employees there are in federal DEI. AFGE is a union of 800,000 federal and Washington, D.C., government workers in the United States and around the world.
After George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by a white police officer on the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May 2020, many businesses and other organizations stepped up their recruitment efforts for DEI workers. This is because "companies try to demonstrate their commitment to diversity and inclusion," according to an article posted on the Colorado HR organization's diversity resources website.
The White House has now said that all federal DEI employees will be placed on paid administrative leave until 5pm (22:00 GMT) on Wednesday. At that time, all DEI-focused web pages will also be offline. DEI-focused pages on several federal websites are now offline with error messages.
A February 2023 Pew Research Center survey showed that 56% of U.S. workers surveyed believe focusing on DEI at work is a good thing. 16% think this is a bad thing and 28% of respondents are neutral.
"Eliminating these programs is just another way President Trump is undermining a merit-based civil service system and turning federal hiring and firing decisions into loyalty tests," a press release from the federal union AFGE said Tuesday.
“Plans that promote an inclusive workforce ensure that rules apply evenly to everyone, plus they help create a federal government that looks like the diverse population it serves.”
However, opposition to DEI plans is growing in the United States, especially among conservatives. The Pew survey was conducted at a time when leading companies are laying off DEI employees, suggesting that organizations are beginning to reject such programs as well.
DEI jobs are leaving companies at nearly twice the rate of non-DEI jobs through November 2021, according to a report released by New York-based workforce database Revelio Labs.
Between July and December 2022, Amazon, Applebee's, and X (then known as Twitter) saw the largest exodus of DEI employees.
In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action in college applications, ruling that race-based admissions violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Previously, the nonprofit legal advocacy group Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) accused Harvard University and the University of North Carolina in a lawsuit of violating the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because of their admissions processes. discriminate. Asian American students. SFFA was founded in 2014 by conservative legal activist Edward Blum.
Since then, many companies, including McDonald's, Walmart, Ford, Lowe's, John Deere and Tractor Supply, have also scaled back their DEI programs.
On January 3, 2024, Elon Musk, the tech billionaire whom Trump appointed to lead the Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), posted on X: “DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it."