Federal agencies are on a hiring spree , searching for candidates to fill new, permanent, high-paying positions. But these new positions are not focused on advancing our nation’s economic and security interests. Instead, they’re focused on promoting the Left’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda.

What gives? Why the sudden push to hire employees focused on advancing DEI when the private sector seems to be sprinting in the opposite direction, purging scores of DEI-focused employees through recent layoffs ?

A new executive order issued by President Joe Biden may provide the answer. Executive Order 14091 , released in February, commands virtually all major federal agencies to create new, permanent units tasked with ensuring “equitable outcomes” regarding race, gender, gender identity, and even “environmental justice” in all facets of federal government business.

It gets worse, according to an investigation launched by the Foundation for Government Accountability. Under the order, everything from hiring and promotion decisions, to federal grantmaking design and dispersal, to the selection of locations for new federal facilities will be based not on strategic or economic considerations but on what offers the most benefit to those the administration deems “underserved.” A White House committee, led by Susan Rice, the president’s domestic policy adviser, will oversee this new government-wide effort.

In other words, the same DEI takeover occurring on college campuses across the country is now taking place in our federal agencies. Equal opportunity and a merit-based system are being replaced with a new system that seeks to benefit certain groups by discriminating against others. The result will be injustice, widespread inefficiency, and underperformance throughout our government.

The timing and rationale for this executive order make perfect sense for the Biden administration. With the end of the Biden presidency fast approaching, White House operatives are executing a plan to permanently impose their political ideology on the government and its workforce from within the government itself, long after voters have booted them out of office.

These new equity teams are a Trojan horse planted in the heart of every federal agency to quietly destroy the agencies from the inside, transforming them into ideologically aligned instruments of the Left. When a new administration arrives, anxious to get “wokeism” out of government business, these folks will remain behind, entrenched in the bureaucracy, thwarting and undermining such efforts.

To shine a light on this unprecedented scheme, FGA has launched an investigation, filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests targeting the 23 agencies addressed in the order. We plan to share the information we gather with Congress, the states, and the public to help stop it. Armed with the information we uncover, strong leaders in Congress will be able to exercise their funding and oversight power to put a stop to Biden’s plan.

To be fair, this plan isn’t Biden’s alone. It was actually developed by a left-wing activist group called the Government Alliance on Race and Equity. Hours after FGA announced our investigation into this executive order, a report on it, which had been proudly displayed on Race Forward’s website for the past year, was temporarily removed but later reposted.

The focus of federal agencies and their workforces should be on serving the public, not advancing the ideology of the Left. This administration has chosen to do the latter. Fortunately, FGA was able to identify Biden’s latest scheme as the Trojan horse that it is, and we’re sounding the alarm, ready to fight.

Tarren Bragdon is CEO and Steward Whitson is legal director of the Foundation for Government Accountability.