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Federal DEI employees had to know what was coming when President Donald Trump began his historic second term on Monday by rescinding the executive order President Biden began his term in 2021 — one that mandated the promotion of racial preferences throughout his administration.
But they probably had no idea that Trump had just started – and that they would be put on leave as early as 5pm on Wednesday.
Trump’s EO reversed the one Biden signed on the first day, January 20, 2021, “Advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities through the federal government,” which became the harbinger of a four-year obsession with race and gender bias.
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Then, for the next 48 hours, Trump proceeded to systematically destroy diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices in the vast federal bureaucracy, federal contractors, and federal grantees.
It was the political equivalent of the Romans salting the Carthaginian fields after reducing their Mediterranean enemy city-state to rubble: the promotion of racial preferences was, after all, a hallmark of the defeated and fired Biden administration.
Later Monday, Trump signed a second anti-DEI EO, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Grants of Preferences,” or EO 24. But he wasn’t done. The next day, Trump signed a third EO, “Ending Unlawful Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” Then his administration issued the killer memo.
Trump’s DEI move was the political equivalent of the Romans salting the fields of Carthage after reducing their Mediterranean enemy city-state to rubble: the promotion of racial preferences was, after all, a hallmark of the defeated and fired Biden administration.
Second EO, no. 24, detailed what departments and agencies need to do to eliminate DEI. Basically, they would have to coordinate with Office of Management and Budgett (OMB), the Attorney General, and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for ceasing all DEI activities.
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The EO, for example, called on the bureaucracy to take the following actions:
“Abolish, to the fullest extent permitted by law, all DEI, DEIA and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions (including but not limited to ‘chief diversity officer’ positions); all ‘equity action plans’, actions ‘equity’ initiatives or programs, ‘equity-linked’ grants or contracts and any DEI or DEIA performance requirements for employees, contractors or grantees.”
The third EO, signed on his second day in office, “Ending Unlawful Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” ended years of racial preferences. It even overturned Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 EO, 11246, notable for being the first government action to require federal contractors to, in effect, agree to racial quotas.
As my good friend and colleague from the Heritage Foundation GianCarlo Canaparo published recently on X, “Over time, that order has become the basis on which government agencies — especially the Department of Labor — have issued regulations and practices that require or compel contractors to discriminate against their employees and subcontractors.”
LBJ’s order, GianCarlo added, required contractors to develop affirmative action plans that soon became quotas, as LBJ and future administrations “forced contractors to report their racial makeup.”
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No move by Trump or others to rid the country the scourge of racial preferences would work as long as EO 11246 remained in place.
It’s a testament to the new fervor of this second term that Trump’s EO crafters knew 11246 had to go.
But Trump still wasn’t done. In an OPM memo attached to the third EO, agency heads were told by Wednesday at 5 p.m. they must “send notice to all DEIA office employees that they have been placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately after the agency takes steps to close / end all initiatives, offices and programs of DEIA.”
Indeed, federal workers began receiving letters from their departments and agencies before closing time Wednesday, warning them that DEI activities would cease immediately. A friend sent me one, it was clear and accurate.
Surely some agencies will try to rename DEI activities and DEI staffand we started seeing something from that late Wednesday. But the protracted battle has only just begun.
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Ending the DEI was Trump’s campaign promise, and voters demanded it. It was the sixth-highest priority in a recent Fox poll, after stemming inflation, cutting taxes, strengthening national defense, deporting illegal immigrants and shrinking the size of government. This was the first priority for as many as 29 percent of voters.
And DEI was an even more important item for President Biden. It had to go.
