President Donald Trump has signed an executive order directing all executive departments and agencies to end all discriminatory preferences, including diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs.
The White House said Tuesday the EO titled Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity revoked several executive actions promoting DEI within the federal government and among federal contractors and subcontractors.
According to the new policy, the Department of Laborâs Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs should immediately end holding federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for advancing âaffirmative action.â
The office should also cease efforts to encourage or allow contractors to âengage in workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin.â
In his EO, Trump said that diversity initiatives âviolate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights lawsâ and âundermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.â
Ending Diversity Efforts in the Private Sector
The Trump policy also calls for the U.S. attorney general to submit a report by May âcontaining recommendations for enforcing Federal civil-rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.â
The report should identify the âkey sectors of concern within each agencyâs jurisdiction,â include a plan containing measures aimed at deterring illegal DEI principles or programs and determine the âmost egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners in each sector of concern,â among others.