On his first two days back in office, President Trump signed two executive orders targeting federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. A Fact Sheet issued by the White House the next day sums up the effect of these orders as follows:
“Federal hiring, promotions, and performance reviews will reward individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work and not, under any circumstances, DEI-related factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements.”
While much of the focus of Trump’s campaign and his first week in office was on rolling back Biden-era initiatives, his executive orders on DEI reverse measures intended to promote a diverse and federal workforce dating back to Lyndon B. Johnson’s tenure as president in the 1960s. As a result, they will have sweeping effects across the federal government, negatively impacting some federal employees and job applicants much more than others. As the ACLU explains:
“With these actions, the administration is not only undoing decades of federal anti-discrimination policy, spanning Democratic and Republican presidential administrations alike, but also marshalling federal enforcement agencies to bully both private and government entities into abandoning legal efforts to promote equity and remedy systemic discrimination. Trump’s executive orders undermine obligations dating back to the Johnson administration that firms doing business with the U.S. government and receiving billions in public dollars are held to the highest standards in remedying and preventing bias.”
Combined with President Trump’s executive orders requiring a return to in-person work, reclassifying tens of thousands of federal employees into more vulnerable employment positions, freezing new hires, and promoting attrition within the federal workforce, these orders are going to have a profound effect on nearly all federal personnel. Going forward, those who choose to remain in the federal government will need to be extremely careful to comply with the new administration’s mandates in order to protect their jobs—including both (i) complying with the rollback of federal DEI initiatives and (ii) reporting potential violations under these initiatives by their coworkers.
What Do President Trump’s Executive Orders on DEI Say?
To understand the extraordinarily broad implications of President Trump’s executive orders on DEI for current and prospective federal employees, we can take a look at the language of the executive orders themselves. Here are some key clauses from the executive order titled, Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing, that Trump issued on January 20, 2025:
- “The [OMB and OPM] shall coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government . . . .”
- “[T]he Director of OPM, with the assistance of the Attorney General as requested, shall review and revise, as appropriate, all existing Federal employment practices, union contracts, and training policies or programs to comply with this order.”
- “Federal employment practices, including Federal employee performance reviews, shall reward individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work and shall not under any circumstances consider DEI or DEIA factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements.”
The January 20, 2025 executive order also directs the heads of all federal agencies, departments and commissions to, “terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions . . . ; all ‘equity action plans,’ ‘equity’ actions, initiatives, or programs, ‘equity-related’ grants or contracts; and all DEI or DEIA performance requirements for employees, contractors, or grantees,” within 60 days.
Now, here are some key clauses from the executive order titled, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, that Trump issued on January 21, 2025:
- “Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine 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.”
- “[I]llegal DEI and DEIA policies also threaten the safety of American men, women, and children across the Nation by diminishing the importance of individual merit, aptitude, hard work, and determination when selecting people for jobs and services in key sectors of American society, including all levels of government . . . .”
- “The purpose of this order is to ensure that [the federal government enforces civil rights laws] by ending illegal preferences and discrimination.”
The January 21, 2025 executive order then goes on to terminate numerous executive orders and presidential memoranda dating back to 1965. It also instructs agency heads to “take all appropriate action with respect to the operations of their agencies to advance” the purposes of the order, and it requires the Attorney General to prepare a report identifying “[k]ey sectors of concern within each agency’s jurisdiction,” and “[t]he most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners in each sector of concern,” within 120 days.
What Can (and Should) Federal Employees Do to Protect Themselves?
With all of this in mind, what can (and should) federal employees do to protect themselves? Unfortunately, this is a complicated question. At a minimum, federal employees should do their best to comply with all applicable mandates, and they should document their compliance efforts to the best of their ability.
Those who have concerns about facing termination or other adverse employment action should also gather documents such as past performance reviews and other documentation of their effective work for the federal government. Federal employees targeted under the government’s new anti-DEI policies may have discrimination claims and/or other defenses, and, in these scenarios, being prepared to rebut any accusations of misconduct or poor performance could prove critical.
Contact the Federal Employment Attorneys at Bell Law Group for More Information
If you need to know more about protecting yourself under the federal government’s new anti-DEI policies, we encourage you to get in touch. Our federal employment attorneys can explain what you need to know, and if necessary, we can take appropriate legal action on your behalf. To schedule a free consultation at Bell Law Group, please call 516-585-3718 or contact us confidentially online today.
