Diversity, equity and inclusion policies are under attack after President Trump signed an executive order banning affirmative action in federal contracting and shuttering DEI offices inside federal agencies.
Although the executive order does not address DEI policies within private companies or nongovernmental entities, experts say it will encourage corporate powerhouses to discard such programs.
The order empowers the Justice Department and other agencies to investigate private entities with training and hiring practices that DEI critics say discriminate against nonminority groups such as White men. It also bans federal contractors and other recipients of federal funding, such as universities, from conducting anti-bias training on concepts such as systemic racism.
“This is absolutely the end of DEI because the order they’ve implemented puts real teeth into getting rid of DEI,” said Dan Lennington, deputy counsel for the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which has filed lawsuits over federal DEI programs.
“The threat of a federal investigation is something every company should be worried about now. If you’re running a corporation using DEI policies and your lawyers aren’t burning up your phone, you should get new lawyers. This has completely changed the game,” he said.
A White House official said actions against private companies could be coming.
“Private businesses should wait and see. We have more actions on DEI very soon,” the officials said on a conference call with reporters this week.
Mr. Trump’s order impacts every aspect of the federal government’s DEI programs, including anti-bias training and funding set aside for groups such as minority farmers. A 2023 Daily Caller News Foundation study found that the federal government spent $16.3 million on diversity training.
The executive action also revoked an order issued by President Johnson in the 1960s that required a percentage of grants and federal contracts to go to minority and women-owned businesses. It ended President Biden’s policy of promoting DEI in the private sector by requiring companies to promote them to win federal contracts.
The Trump administration says the order restores the values “of individual dignity, hard work and excellence.” A fact sheet distributed by the White House called Mr. Biden’s DEI push unconstitutional and “deeply demeaning” toward equity.
Since George Floyd’s death in 2020, DEI has permeated nearly every aspect of American culture. It has impacted Americans’ investments and retirement savings as corporations increasingly consider environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors such as a company’s DEI policies. Even Hollywood has been affected. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences adopted DEI rules for the best picture category at the Oscars in 2023.
The conservative Goldwater Institute reported that DEI course mandates at public universities across the nation cost taxpayers and undergraduate students nearly $2 billion annually.
Ahead of Mr. Trump’s order, DEI programs were already faltering, especially after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions in 2023.
In recent weeks, corporate behemoths such as Amazon, McDonald’s, Meta, Walmart, Boeing and Coors announced they were either scaling back or abandoning their DEI programs. All had faced pressure from conservatives over the policies.
Notable holdouts include Costco, Apple and Microsoft, but shareholders have been mounting pressure on those companies. Some shareholders have proposed requiring companies to report on any potential risks that diversity programs could pose to profits.
At a shareholder meeting this month, Costco argued that DEI enhances its ability to “attract and retain employees who will help our business succeed.”
Experts say they could follow suit after Mr. Trump dismantled DEI at the federal level.
“This is the beginning of the end of DEI,” said Paul Kamenar, counsel for the National Legal and Policy Center, which has floated shareholder proposals to end DEI programs at corporations. “It is the end for government programs, and I think it will have a longer-lasting effect throughout the rest of our society, whether it’s business culture or other institutions.”
Fatima Goss Graves, the CEO and president of the National Women’s Law Center, said Mr. Trump’s executive order will subject federal workers to lower pay, hostile work environments, and other types of discrimination and harassment.
“This order is an open invitation for federal contractors — who are paid with taxpayer dollars — to deny opportunities to the very people whose hard work lines their pockets,” she said.
By the end of Wednesday, the DEI offices across the federal government were shut down and workers assigned to those offices had their email access suspended and were placed on paid leave. The employees will remain on leave until the Trump administration decides whether to lay them off or transfer them to another government job.
The White House did not respond to requests for data on how many workers would be impacted by the order.
Some of the government’s largest agencies, including the Justice, Education and Defense departments, had DEI offices.
A 2022 Biden administration DEI progress report said the Office of Personnel Management worked with 103 agency DEI implementation teams and produced a newsletter with more than 1,000 agency subscribers.
On Wednesday, several agencies removed DEI-focused webpages from their sites, canceled DEI-related training and ended DEI contracts. Most agencies made those moves ahead of the executive order.
Mr. Lennington said some programs have become entrenched and will be difficult to dismantle. The Treasury Department offers housing assistance programs through grants to states that have diversity programs.
He said the executive order has some legal protections, such as the Supreme Court’s decision to abolish affirmative action.
“Everything [the Trump administration] is doing is protected by the Supreme Court decision, so they are just implementing what the Constitution requires them to do,” he said. “You can’t turn this stuff back.”
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.