President Donald Trump has begun scaling back equal-opportunity programmes through two executive orders. Through these, he has also rescinded the 60-year-old executive order which originally implemented equality and diversity programmes in the United States.
Here is more about how Trump is scrapping federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, which he has called “radical”, “illegal” and “discriminatory”.
What are these orders about?
Two out of the 26 executive orders that Trump signed on Monday, soon after taking office, are relevant to this: One calls for federal DEI programmes to be scrapped and the other calls for reforming federal hiring.
Scrapping federal DEI programmes
In one executive order, titled Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing, Trump declared that the Joe Biden administration had “forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs”.
The DEI, also known as the DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility), refers to a set of measures and frameworks within organisations which seek to make themselves more inclusive and prevent discrimination against historically disadvantaged communities.
The core values of DEI include:
- Diversity: The acceptance of people from different backgrounds
- Equity: The fair and equal treatment of all people regardless of background
- Inclusion: Ensuring minorities are not underrepresented or left behind because of their identities.
The executive order states that the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), assisted by the attorney general and the director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), must now work on terminating DEI programmes operating within the federal government.
To this end, federal employment practices, union contracts and training policies or programmes will be formally reviewed.
Reforming the federal hiring process
Trump also signed another order, titled Reforming the Federal Hiring Process and Restoring Merit to Government Service, on Monday. It states that current federal hiring practices are flawed and no longer focus on merit or “dedication to our Constitution”.
The order calls for federal agency leaders to develop a federal hiring plan, amending how federal employees are hired or fired, emphasising merit-based decisions over political considerations within 120 days of the order. The order adds that the federal hiring plan shall “prevent the hiring of individuals based on their race, sex, or religion”.
What about the private sector?
Regarding the private sector, on Tuesday, Trump also issued a separate presidential action – rather than an executive order – entitled Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.
This mentions “encouraging the private sector to end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences” and directs all federal agencies to each identify up to nine publicly traded companies or other entities that might be subject to civil investigation.
This action also said agencies would be required to “investigate” private companies, non-profits and associations, as well as larger foundations and colleges with endowments worth more than $1bn which might be adopting DEI practices.
“The order also strongly implies that private employers’ DEI efforts, especially among companies with federal contractors, are illegal and will become the subject of federal enforcement action. Federal contractors in particular will probably move to comply with this in mind,” Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute think tank, told Al Jazeera.
“However, the courts are the ones who will rule on whether private DEI programs are illegal, and they may not agree with the interpretations adopted by the Trump administration,” he added.
This executive action also mentions a 1965 executive order on equal employment opportunities that was a central part of Civil Rights era regulations and laws aimed at ending discrimination against Black Americans.
What is the 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity order that Trump is revoking?
“Executive Order 11246 of September 24, 1965 (Equal Employment Opportunity), is hereby revoked,” Trump’s executive order on DEI programmes says.
The Equal Employment Opportunity order (PDF) was signed by Lyndon B Johnson, the Democrat president from 1963 to 1969. It prohibited federal contractors from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin.
It also called for affirmative action, which is a policy of favouring individuals who have been historically disadvantaged for workplace opportunities. The concept of affirmative action was first introduced in 1961 by Democrat President John F Kennedy. Johnson’s 1965 executive order was opposed by segregationists and the Republicans who believed in segregating spaces based on race.
The order was signed to prevent employment discrimination against women and minorities. It came amid the burgeoning civil rights movement in the US, which marked the emergence of identity politics in the country after a series of large-scale protests and civil disobedience largely over discrimination against Black people and women.
In 1964, a year before Executive Order 11246, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, which also banned discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex or national origin. In 1965, African Americans were finally awarded the right to vote through the Voting Rights Act.
Who are DEI workers?
Federal DEI staffers are professionals such as trainers in diversity offices. “DEI workers can range from individual employees charged with these tasks to entire departments with hundreds of employees practicing different specialties such as complaint management, external relations, publications and much more,” Olson said.
It is unclear how many federal DEI employees there are in total, according to the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the BBC reported. The AFGE is a union comprising 800,000 federal and Washington, DC government workers across the US and the world.
Many businesses and other organisations ramped up the hiring of DEI employees after George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered in May 2020 by a white police officer on a street in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This was because “companies sought to illustrate their commitment to diversity and inclusion”, according to an article published on the website of Diversity Resources, a Colorado-based human resources organisation.
Since the passage of a January 22 deadline set by the Trump White House, all federal DEI employees have been sent on paid administrative leave. DEI-focused webpages appear to have been taken offline.
How do Americans feel about DEI?
A survey conducted by Pew Research Center in February 2023 showed that 56 percent of US workers surveyed believed focusing on DEI at work was a good thing. Sixteen percent thought it was a bad thing and 28 percent of the respondents were neutral.
“Undoing these programs is just another way for President Trump to undermine the merit-based civil service and turn federal hiring and firing decisions into loyalty tests,” a press release published on Tuesday by federal worker union AFGE stated.
“Programs that promote an inclusive workforce ensure that the rules are applied evenly to everyone, plus they help build a federal government that looks like the diverse population it serves.”
However, opposition to DEI programmes has been mounting in the US, especially among conservatives. The Pew survey was conducted when leading companies were laying off their DEI employees, a sign that organisations have also begun to reject such schemes.
By November 2021, DEI roles were leaving companies almost twice as fast as non-DEI roles, according to a report published by the New York-based workforce database Revelio Labs.
Between July and December 2022, Amazon, Applebee’s and X, then called Twitter, had the largest outflows of DEI workers.
In June 2023, the US Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action for college applications, concluding that race-conscious admissions violate the equal protection clause of the US Constitution. This was after nonprofit legal advocacy organisation Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) alleged in a lawsuit that Harvard College and the University of North Carolina had violated the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution as well as the 1964 Civil Rights Act as their admissions processes discriminated against Asian-American students. SFFA was founded by conservative legal activist Edward Blum in 2014.
Following this, many companies, including McDonald’s, Walmart, Ford, Lowe’s, John Deere and Tractor Supply, also scaled back on their DEI programmes.
On January 3, 2024, tech billionaire Elon Musk, whom Trump has picked to lead his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), posted on X: “DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it.”
