Trump administration orders DEI employees to be placed on leave | News about Donald Trump
The US president is aggressively pushing back against diversity, equity and inclusion agendas.
United States President Donald Trump’s administration has ordered all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff to be placed on paid leave and eventually fired, as the Republican leader targets initiatives aimed at solve systemic racism.
The Office of Personnel Management memo, first reported by CBS News, directed agencies to place DEI office staff on paid leave by 5:00 p.m. (22:00 GMT) Wednesday and remove all public websites targeting the DEI by the same deadline .
Agencies must also cancel any DEI-related training and terminate any related contracts, and federal workers are required to report to the office if they suspect any DEI-related program has been renamed to obscure its purpose within 10 days – or will face “harmful consequences”.
By Thursday, federal agencies were ordered to compile a list of federal DEI offices and workers since Election Day in November. He is also expected to develop a plan by next Friday to carry out a “force reduction action” against those federal workers.
The moves follow an executive order signed by Trump his first day in office this week ordered a sweeping repeal of the federal government’s DEI programs, which could touch everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners.
Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and has insisted on restoring what he describes as strictly “merit-based” hiring.
But civil rights advocates argue that DEI programs are necessary to address long-standing inequalities and structural racism.
Basil Smikle Jr, a political strategist and policy adviser, said he was troubled by the Trump administration’s claim that diversity programs “downplay individual merit, ability, hard work and determination” because they suggest women and people of color lack merit or qualifications.
“There is a clear effort to impede, if not undermine, the political and economic power of people and women of color,” Smikle said.
“What it does is open the door to more cronyism,” he said.
Trump’s push against DEI picks up where his first administration left off.
One of Trump’s last actions during his 2017-2021 first term was an executive order barring federal agency contractors and recipients of federal funds from conducting anti-bias training that addresses concepts such as systemic racism.
His successor, Democrat and former US President Joe Biden, promptly rescinded that order on his first day in office and issued a pair of executive orders — now revoked — outlining the plan promote DEI throughout 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 much more accessible terrain in the corporate world.
Prominent companies from Walmart to Facebook have already done so reduced or finished some of their diversity practices in response to Trump’s election and conservative-backed lawsuits against them.
