President Donald Trump’s administration issued a directive late on Tuesday ordering all federal diversity, equity and inclusion offices to be shut down by Wednesday evening and putting all staffers overseeing such initiatives to be put on paid leave, following through on the president's vow to crack down on the programs he claims are discriminatory.
US President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the WHite House in ... [+]
A memo sent by the Office of Personnel Management to all federal agencies offered guidance on enacting Trump’s executive order to dismantle federal diversity efforts.
The memo directs the heads of federal agencies and departments to place all staffers overseeing DEI efforts on administrative paid leave by 5 p.m. on Wednesday and lay out plans for staff reductions by Jan. 31.
The agencies and departments have also been ordered to take down any websites and social media accounts by the Wednesday evening deadline.
The memo also orders the immediate withdrawal of any “pending documents, directives, orders, materials, and equity plans” regarding DEI in the federal workforce and the cancellation of related training initiatives.
By Thursday, the federal agencies will be required to share a complete list of all diversity-related offices and employees who were staffed in those offices as of Election Day (November 5) and all DEI-related agency contracts.
The memo also orders the agencies to share a list of all “contract descriptions or personnel position descriptions” that were changed since election day to “obscure their connection to DEIA programs.”
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Agency heads will need to send a notice informing all employees in the agency about the changes. The OPM has provided a template for wording the notice, which informs all employees about the move to close “all agency DEIA offices and end all DEIA-related contracts.” The notice adds that: “These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.” The staffers will also be informed that the Trump administration is “aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language,” and urged to report this within 10 days. The notice ends by saying there will be no repercussions “for timely reporting this information,” but warns that not doing so could “result in adverse consequences.”
This is a developing story.