01-28-2025
All employees in federal diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility offices have been placed on paid administrative leave “effective immediately.” Getting rid of DEI programs was central to the president’s election campaign. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management directed agencies to notify their DEI employees of the leave and to begin taking steps to “close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.” Furthermore, the office websites and social media accounts for these initiatives must be shut down. All DEI-related meetings were canceled. The administration promised to “dismantle the DEI bureaucracy” such as “environmental justice programs, equity-related grants, equity action plans, [and] equity initiatives.” Impacted agencies include the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, Diversity & Inclusion and the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Opportunity Policy at the DOD. The administration wants agency employees to report “any efforts to disguise” DEI programs.
The White House ended the use of DEI in hiring and federal contracting, a decades-old policy. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is barred from “requiring contractors to balance their workforce based on race, sex, gender identity, sexual preference, or religion.” This administration’s goals extend to the private sector. Agency heads must work with the attorney general to create a report with recommendations to “encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.” The order targets state bar associations, medical associations, publicly traded companies, and major nonprofits and universities.
Many civil rights and advocacy groups plan to challenge these efforts to eradicate DEI. The State Bar of California and the Massachusetts Bar Association are pushing back. California’s bar, the largest in the country, said its programs will remain because “none of [their] work in this space involves illegal discrimination or preferences.” Massachusetts issued a similar statement.