From federal agencies to stakeholders who get federal dollars for special training, many are trying to process how President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order putting a stop to diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the U.S. government will upend their work.
DEI laws and programs have been under attack for years by Republicans who contend that the measures threaten merit-based hiring, promotion and educational opportunities of white people, specifically white men. Criticism comes from other sectors, as well: Some Asian Americans argue it unfairly limits opportunities for high-achieving students and workers, and some in the Black community believe it undermines years of progress.
However, DEI supporters say the programs are necessary to ensure that institutions meet the needs of increasingly diverse populations and the impact of the loss of these measures goes beyond people of color.
On Wednesday, Trump put the federal government’s weight behind the push to end such programs by signing an executive order that would effectively dismantle them from all aspects of the federal government.
“To the people who oppose us, the ones who attack DEI, they have tried to bastardize that acronym,” Virginia Kase Solomón, president and CEO of Common Cause, said Wednesday during a call-to-action panel after Trump’s anti-DEI executive order. “Instead, they want to diminish and exterminate and incapacitate progress towards a multiracial democracy to maintain white supremacy and concentration of wealth.”
How did it happen?
Republican lawmakers who oppose DEI programs — created to address systemic inequities faced by certain groups — say they are discriminatory and promote left-wing ideology.
During his campaign for president, Trump vowed to end “wokeness” and “leftist indoctrination” in education. He pledged to dismantle diversity programs that he says amount to discrimination and to impose fines on colleges “up to the entire amount of their endowment.”
In 2023, conservatives notched a long-sought win when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs in higher education, finding that race-conscious admissions violate the Constitution. That ruling drew increased legal challenges to DEI initiatives, with some American companies citing the decision in scaling back their diversity policies.
What does Trump's order call for?
The executive action calls for the termination of DEI programs, mandates, policies, preferences and activities in the federal government along with the review and revision of existing federal employment practices, union contracts and training policies or programs.
Agency, department and commission heads have 60 days to terminate to the maximum extent allowed by law all DEI, DEIA and “environmental justice” offices and positions, action plans, equity-related grants or contracts as well as end all DEI or DEIA performance requirements.
It also targets federal contractors who have provided DEI training or materials, and grantees who received federal funding to provide or advance DEI programs, services or activities since former President Joe Biden took office in 2021.
Paolo Gaudiano provides DEI consulting services to a government contractor and a federal academy via his company, Aleria, which helps organizations measure inclusion, and ARC, a nonprofit focused on DEI research.
He has not heard from any agencies he works with about his contract status since Trump’s executive order. What he is hearing is that employees are terrified because the order’s meaning is unclear.
“Does it mean closing the office but giving them a different position?” Gaudiano said. “It is a mess, a complete mess.”
Many federal employees would not speak with reporters out of concern about the punitive environment within the White House.
"It’s possible that I will reach out to them and find out that they’ve all been terminated," Gaudiano said.
Even with a rollback, Gaudiano is sure employees and contractors will still pursue some form of DEI programs, especially if it helps productivity. Although anti-DEI groups often focus on racial identity, underrepresented populations can mean women, the LGBTQ community, people with disabilities or veterans.
“What is happening is that you’re focusing on structural organizational problems, which often impacts minority groups or underrepresented groups more than majority groups,” Gaudiano said. “When you’re fixing the problems, you fix the problems for everybody. And it just happens to benefit underrepresented groups as well as minority groups.”
What effect did the anti-DEI movement have before the executive order?
— Dozens of diversity, equity and inclusion programs have already closed in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, Iowa, Nebraska, Texas and other states.
— Almost 200 diversity, equity and inclusion staff positions were either cut or reassigned across North Carolina’s public university system. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees in May approved diverting $2.3 million of state funds for advancing diversity to public safety and policing.
— Texas’ 2023 law led to the University of Texas cutting 300 full- and part-time positions and eliminating more than 600 programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion training.
— In 2023, Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an anti-DEI order that led to last year’s termination of the national women’s leadership program at the University of Oklahoma.
— Universities of Wisconsin regents reached a deal with Republican lawmakers in 2023 to limit DEI positions at the system’s two dozen campuses in exchange for funds for staff raises and construction projects. The deal imposed a hiring freeze on diversity positions through 2026 and shifted more than 40 diversity-related positions to focus on “student success.”
The Office of Personnel Management in a Tuesday memo directed agencies to place DEI office staffers on paid leave by 5 p.m. Wednesday and take down all public DEI-focused webpages by the same deadline.
Agencies must also cancel any DEI-related training and end any related contracts, and federal workers are being asked to report to Trump’s Office of Personnel Management if they suspect any DEI-related program has been renamed to obfuscate its purpose within 10 days or face “adverse consequences.”
By Thursday, federal agencies are directed to compile a list of federal DEI offices and workers as of Election Day. By next Friday, they are expected to develop a plan to execute a “reduction-in-force action” against those federal workers.
It may be easy for Trump to sign such an order but more difficult to carry out, said Frederick Gooding Jr., African American studies professor at Texas Christian University and author of “American Dream Deferred: Black Federal Workers in Washington, D.C., 1941-1981.”
"It’s not going to be as easy to execute. It’s going to be more of a fantasy. There are no quick fixes for these issues that took years, if not centuries, to develop,” Gooding said Wednesday.
The National Urban League and the National Fair Housing Alliance, as government contractors, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit against a similar executive order issued during Trump’s first administration, arguing it trampled on freedom of speech rights. A California federal court suspended that order in response to a similar lawsuit filed by Lambda Legal, an organization that advocates for the rights of LGBTQ people.
"This will test us,” National Urban League President Marc Moriel said Wednesday during a call-to-action roundtable that the group hosted. “These orders are unlawful; they are unconstitutional.”
___ Figueroa reported from Austin, Texas. Alexander reported from Washington. Williams reported from Detroit. Associated Press reporter Alexandra Olson in New York City contributed to this report.