THE NEW YORK TIMES: Donald Trump administration orders DEI officials be put on leave

The Trump administration has ordered that officials tasked with overseeing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across federal agencies be placed on administrative leave and that all initiatives taking place across the government be brought to a halt.

In a memo from the Office of Personnel Management, the heads of departments and agencies were ordered to purge such officials by placing all DEI staff on paid administrative leave, effective immediately, by 5 p.m. Wednesday, and to make plans for staff reductions by the end of the day Friday.

The memo also directed agencies to take down any language or advertisements about their DEI initiatives and to withdraw any pending documents or directives that would undermine the new orders. It also ordered agency heads to inform DEI officials that their offices would be closed and that employees would be questioned about whether there were any remaining efforts that remained “in disguise” by coded or imprecise language.

The directive was a swift attempt to carry out elements of President Donald Trump’s Day 1 executive order dismantling federal diversity efforts. In a new executive order Tuesday, Trump encouraged the private sector to follow the federal government’s lead and “end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences and comply with all federal civil-rights laws.” His order also directed agencies to investigate corporations and foundations’ compliance with those laws.

While the federal government has no purview over many private-sector practices, it does have discretion to enforce its rules on heavily relied-upon private contractors and subcontractors who would be subject to the new rules. In anticipation of Trump’s taking office, several companies, from Meta and McDonald’s, have rolled back their DEI initiatives.

The order Tuesday said that DEI policies “undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favour of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.”

“Yet in case after tragic case,” the order said, “the American people have witnessed first hand the disastrous consequences of illegal, pernicious discrimination that has prioritised how people were born instead of what they were capable of doing.”

Within hours after he was sworn into office, Trump rescinded several executive orders signed by his predecessor, Joe Biden. The first was one that Biden had signed on his first day in office, titled “advancing racial equity and supporting underserved communities,” which ordered that federal agencies infuse equity into virtually all policymaking during his tenure.

Biden prided himself on putting racial equity at the centre of his policymaking, in areas including the environment, infrastructure, the economy and health care.

The order reverses Biden’s position that a government committed to reversing decades of discrimination and neglect in underserved communities is a course correction for the nation rather than a threat to its future.

The executive actions fulfil Trump’s promise to eradicate “radical” policy and “wasteful” spending on initiatives aimed at combating systemic inequities, which have drawn the ire of conservatives who say diversity initiatives have amounted to reverse discrimination and racial “preferences.” Trump’s order required the elimination of programs with goals of “diversity,” “equity” and “equitable decision-making.”

Trump amplified these calls during his inaugural address to the nation upon taking office, vowing to stop efforts to “socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.”

“We will forge a society that is colourblind and merit-based,” Trump declared during the address.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that the new directives should “come as no surprise.”

“President Trump campaigned on ending the scourge of D.E.I. from our federal government and returning America to a merit based society where people are hired based on their skills, not for the colour of their skin,” the statement read. “This is another win for Americans of all races, religions, and creeds. Promises made, promises kept.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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