Trump order ending federal DEI programs leaves agencies and stakeholders on uncertain ground
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From federal agencies to stakeholders who get federal dollars for special training, many are trying to process how President Donald Trump’s sweeping executive order putting a stop to diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the U.S. government will upend their work.
DEI laws and programs have been under attack for years by Republicans who contend that the measures threaten merit-based hiring, promotion and educational opportunities of white people, specifically white men. Criticism comes from other sectors, as well: Some Asian Americans argue it unfairly limits opportunities for high-achieving students and workers, and some in the Black community believe it undermines years of progress.
However, DEI supporters say the programs are necessary to ensure that institutions meet the needs of increasingly diverse populations and the impact of the loss of these measures goes beyond people of color. On Wednesday, Trump put the federal government’s weight behind the push to end such programs by signing an executive order that would effectively dismantle them from all aspects of the federal government.
“To the people who oppose us, the ones who attack DEI, they have tried to bastardize that acronym,” Virginia Kase Solomón, president and CEO of Common Cause, said Wednesday during a call-to-action panel after Trump’s anti-DEI executive order. “Instead, they want to diminish and exterminate and incapacitate progress towards a multiracial democracy to maintain white supremacy and concentration of wealth.”.
