Trump administration gives green light to start firing federal workers in DEI roles
The Trump administration is stepping up its timeline for terminating federal employees in diversity, equity and inclusion roles.
In a memo Friday, the acting head of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management said agency heads “shall take action to terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions within sixty days.”
It’s still unclear how many workers would be affected. The White House has not provided detailed estimates. Termination efforts also could be hampered by workplace protections for many career government employees.
The directive accelerates earlier plans from the administration which had called for government agencies to submit written plans by Jan. 31 for dismissing workers at some point in the future.
The updated guidance says agencies “can and should” start issuing layoff notices “to employees of DEIA offices now.” An order issued Tuesday told department heads to inform all workers in DEI roles that they would be put on paid leave the following day.
NBC News reported this week that federal employees had received emails warning that they could face “adverse consequences” if they do not notify the Office of Personnel Management about efforts to “obscure” DEI initiatives.
The memos follow President Donald Trump signing an executive order Monday ending what he called “radical and wasteful” DEI diversity, equity and inclusion programs in federal agencies, with DEI offices and programs being ordered to shut down.
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Trump this week also revoked a decades-old executive order that banned discrimination by federal contractors.
During his inaugural address on Monday, Trump framed his crackdown on diversity initiatives as a move to “end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life.”
In efforts to implement Trump’s directives, government agencies have also begun removing mentions of diversity from their websites.
The Department of Homeland Security labeled as “archived content” a webpage focused on “inclusive diversity” and cultivating an inclusive workplace.
The Education Department on Thursday announced that it had dissolved DEI-focused councils, placed on paid administrative leave career department staff who were responsible for implementing DEI initiatives and removed or archived hundreds of materials containing DEI resources.
DEI pages for the State Department, Labor Department and Commerce Department were also taken down.
The National Gallery of Art, which receives federal funds, said Friday that it had closed an office dedicated to belonging and inclusion in response to Trump’s crackdown.
