Trump uses all tools available to roll back federal DEI initiatives

President Donald Trump’s sweeping orders to end the government’s diversity, equity, and inclusion effort mark a sea change for the country, unwinding decades-long priorities for the nation’s largest employer – the federal government – and broader efforts to push the private sector to ensure its workforce is diverse and inclusive too.

Mr. Trump, only days into his second term as president, has shown with his wide-reaching moves that he’s willing to use all the levers of the government to fulfill a longstanding campaign promise and bring about a profound cultural shift across the United States from promoting diversity to an exclusive focus on merit.

Hours after taking the oath of office, the president signed an executive order ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs within the federal government, which he and conservatives have long condemned as discriminatory.

His administration then moved Jan. 21 to end affirmative action in federal contracting – a move first required by President Lyndon Johnson – and ordered all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion staff be put on paid leave and eventually laid off.

The effort escalates a push Mr. Trump made in his last term as president and relies on the very same tools his predecessor, former President Joe Biden, used to try to promote DEI programs across American life by embedding the priority into rules for federal contractors and grant recipients.

Mr. Biden and his supporters cast DEI efforts as a way to ensure that historically marginalized communities are included and represented. Mr. Trump has branded the programs “discrimination” and said he wants to restore “merit-based” hiring.

Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said the government already hires and promotes exclusively based on merit.

“The results are clear: a diverse federal workforce that looks like the nation it serves, with the lowest gender and racial pay gaps in the country. We should all be proud of that,” Mr. Kelley said in a statement.

Mr. Kelley called Mr. Trump’s actions “a smokescreen for firing civil servants, undermining the apolitical civil service, and turning the federal government into an army of yes-men loyal only to the president, not the Constitution.”

Mr. Trump’s order directs federal agencies to develop plans to deter DEI programs in the private sector and at universities and list potential civil compliance investigations that could be launched to bring about that aim. It’s a marked attempt to chill DEI initiatives across the country, placing them in the crosshairs of the federal government such that even if conducted lawfully, private employers may be forced to respond to federal probes.

Shifting federal priorities between administrations of different political parties is nothing new. But the scale and speed of the country’s onetime embrace of DEI programs and Mr. Trump’s systematic effort to root them out is dizzying.

At the end of Mr. Trump’s first term, the Republican sought to ban federal agency contractors and recipients of federal funds from carrying out corporate diversity initiatives.

Mr. Biden rescinded that order on his first day as president and issued two executive orders aiming to stitch – throughout the government and the workforce at large – a sensitivity about bias and discrimination.

“I cannot describe to you how influential that executive order was. It really dictated the four years of the Mr. Biden administration,” said Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation whose writings have included a focus on DEI programs. “The first thing Mr. Trump does is rescind that executive order.”

Mr. Gonzalez said the breadth of Mr. Trump’s actions and the fact that they came so quickly was “a pretty sweeping statement.”

Mr. Gonzalez said DEI programs adopted across American society, from the federal government to private corporations, are “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral,” and violate the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment’s guarantees of equal protection under the law.

He called Mr. Biden’s actions on DEI “very misguided and regrettable.”

“We have gone down that path before as a society,” he said. “We decided this was something we did not want to do, to promote or hire on the basis of race.”

Most Americans agree that being white and a man helps people’s ability to get ahead in the U.S. today, and that being Black hurts people’s ability to get ahead, according to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in 2023. They’re also more likely to say that being a woman, Hispanic, or Asian is more harmful than helpful.

But another Pew Research Center poll from 2024 found that U.S. adults are more split on the extent to which white people benefit from advantages that Black people don’t have, or if women still face obstacles that make it harder for them to get ahead than men.

And there are indications that Mr. Trump’s supporters are particularly concerned about gains for groups like women and racial minorities coming at the expense of others. According to AP VoteCast, relatively few voters in the 2024 election overall – about 3 in 10 – said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned that U.S. society has focused too much on gains for women at the expense of men, but Mr. Trump’s supporters were more divided. A majority were “not too” concerned or “not at all” concerned about gains for women coming at the expense of men, but about 4 in 10 said they were at least “somewhat” concerned.

Even before Mr. Trump’s actions, a backlash to DEI programs has been already underway in corporate America.

Dozens of prominent companies started to roll back, or even eliminate, their DEI commitments in the wake of a 2023 Supreme Court ruling eliminating affirmative action at universities, a decision that unleashed a flood of conservative-backed lawsuits against diversity efforts in the corporate world. The trend accelerated sharply after Mr. Trump’s election as companies anticipated his aggressive orders to dismantle DEI.

Walmart, for instance, announced in November that it would no longer consider race and gender when offering supplier contracts, a decision that mirrors reforms Mr. Trump’s administration will pursue with federal contracts.

Already, conservative lawsuits have successfully forced some government agencies to stop considering race when awarding government contracting and financing.

Facebook owner META, McDonald’s, and Boeing are among other companies that have dropped DEI commitments in response to the changing legal landscape and the change of government.

However, many of the country’s top companies have stuck by their DEI policies, including some with government contracts such as tech giant Microsoft and global consulting firm Accenture.

This story was reported by The Associated Press. AP writers Amelia Thomson-Deveaux and Alexandra Olson contributed to this report.