President Donald Trump’s Office of Personnel Management ordered the heads of federal agencies and departments to start terminating diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and employees, per a memo issued Friday night.
“Each agency, department, or commission head shall take action to terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions within sixty days,” the memo states. DEIA offices address accessibility issues for people with disabilities.
It’s unclear how many DEI workers would be affected, as the White House has not provided an estimate for the expected layoffs.
The memo follows Trump’s directive earlier this week that told agencies and departments to submit written plans by January 31 for executing mass layoffs of DEI employees, but the new memo says they should begin submitting those plans now.
The previous directive authorized agencies to put staff on paid administrative leave by the end of Wednesday this week, suspend the terminated employees’ email access, and remove all “outward facing media” such as websites and social media accounts operated by DEI offices.
Implementing Trump’s directives, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Education have begun removing or archiving any mention of diversity from their websites. The State Department, Labor Department, and Commerce Department also followed suit.
The latest moves are in line with the president’s day-one executive order that cracks down on the Biden administration’s “radical and wasteful” DEI policies across the board within the federal government.
Trump signed an additional executive order to overturn former president Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 executive order that created affirmative action for federal contractors. The race-based hiring requirements constitute illegal discrimination for giving preference to people based on their racial, ethnic, or gender identity, according to the order. The reversal marks a return to merit-based hiring.
During his inaugural address on Monday, Trump promised he would “end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life” and return to a society that is “colorblind and merit-based.”
DEI practices are also losing their influence over corporate America. On Friday, Target said it was rolling back its DEI initiatives. However, Costco shareholders under the influence of proxy advisers decided on Thursday to still hold onto the retail chain’s DEI practices. If companies continue maintaining their DEI policies, they could face civil rights investigations spearheaded by the new administration.