Last year, a little-known office in the U.S. Department of Labor helped Black workers at a Texas medical center recover $900,000 in back wages, and Black workers at a Caterpillar manufacturing plant in Illinois recover $800,000, each time over allegations that those applicants lost out on jobs because of their race. Called the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, this division investigates and fights employment discrimination for one-fifth of the U.S. labor force. It was created in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an executive order strengthening the provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that banned racial discrimination by employers. The O.F.C.C.P. specifically enforced the law among businesses and institutions that contracted with the government or received federal funds. The landmark law also banned segregation and discrimination in all public places, including schools, libraries, restaurants and buses.
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For more than 60 years, the executive order helped many thousands of workers who had endured discrimination. Yet despite the law, research shows that Black Americans continue to face pervasive employment discrimination at a rate that has not declined since the late 1980s.
On his second day in office, President Donald Trump labeled O.F.C.C.P.’s efforts to enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act illegal and discriminatory — presumably against white people. He signed his own executive order revoking Johnson’s on behalf of, as he put it, “hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American dream.”
Within the week, Trump’s acting secretary of labor ordered the O.F.C.C.P. to “immediately cease and desist all investigative and enforcement activity” and close all open cases. A few weeks later, O.F.C.C.P.’s acting director proposed slashing its staff by 90 percent. In fewer than two months, six decades of civil rights enforcement was essentially dead.
Trump has justified these actions by claiming he is rooting out racial discrimination disguised as “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Indeed, the other federal agency charged with investigating employment discrimination, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, recently created a page on its website dedicated to helping white Americans file complaints based on being victimized by diversity, equity and inclusion programs.