President Donald Trump’s administration is ordering that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be placed on paid leave and that agencies develop plans to lay them off, according to a memo published Tuesday by the Office of Personnel Management, the agency responsible for the civil service.
The memo follows an executive order signed by the president on his first day in office ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs, which could touch on everything from anti-bias training to funding for farmers and landlords from minorities.
The memo directs agencies to place DEI office staff on paid leave by 5 p.m. Wednesday and to remove all public web pages focused on diversity, equity and inclusion by the same deadline.
Several federal departments had deleted the web pages even before the memo was published. Agencies must also cancel any DEI-related training and terminate any related contracts. Federal employees are also asked to report to Donald Trump’s Office of Personnel Management if they suspect a DEI-related program has been renamed to obscure its purpose within 10 days or face “negative consequences “.
By Thursday, federal agencies are tasked with compiling a list of federal DEI offices and employees as of Election Day. By next Friday, they are expected to develop a list to execute a “reduction in force action” against these federal employees.
The memo was first reported by CBS News.
-The move comes after Monday’s executive order accused former President Joe Biden of imposing “discrimination” programs in “virtually every aspect of the federal government” through “diversity, equity and Inclusion”, known as DEI.
The move is the first salvo in an aggressive campaign to roll back these programs’ efforts nationwide, including calling on the Justice Department and other agencies to investigate private companies that pursue practices training and hiring that conservative critics view as discriminatory against non-minority groups, such as white men.
The executive order picks up where the first Trump administration left off. One of the president’s final acts during his first term was an executive order banning federal agency contractors and recipients of federal funds from conducting anti-bias training covering concepts such as systemic racism. Joe Biden quickly reversed that executive order on his first day in office and issued two executive orders — now rescinded — outlining a plan to promote DEI across the federal government.
Although many changes may take months or even years to implement, Mr. Trump’s new anti-DEI agenda is more aggressive than the first and comes against a much more favorable backdrop in the business world . Prominent companies from Walmart to Facebook have already scaled back or ended some of their diversity practices in response to the Republican’s election and conservative-backed lawsuits against them.
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