U.S. agencies under new President Donald Trump pushed Thursday to implement their mandates to reshape the federal bureaucracy, encouraging workers to report any clandestine efforts to maintain diversity programs and preparing to close offices dedicated to such efforts to next week.
Trump has made no secret of his disdain for the extensive federal workforce and, in particular, diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which promote opportunities for women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ people and other traditionally underrepresented groups.
Trump and his supporters say DEI programs end up unfairly discriminating against other Americans and downplay applicants’ merits when hiring or promoting them in a job.
A memo distributed to thousands of federal workers across the government on Wednesday ordered employees to report co-workers who tried to “disguise” DEI efforts by using “coded language,” warning that a failure to report relevant information would trigger “adverse consequences.”
The messages bore the signatures of high-level Trump appointees: the State Department memo was signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, for example, while the Department of Veterans Affairs email was signed by the acting secretary. of Veterans Affairs, Todd Hunter.
Officials who oversee DEI programs at numerous agencies and departments were placed on leave Wednesday, and their offices were set for permanent closure at the end of the month.
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The measures were part of Trump’s broader campaign against the federal bureaucracy, which he has sometimes disparaged as the “deep state” secretly working against his agenda.
Trump froze virtually all federal hiring and signed an executive order on his first day in office Monday that would allow his administration to fire at will tens of thousands of career officials, who have historically enjoyed job protections that insulate them from political partisanship. .
The order, known as Schedule F, would allow Trump to fill those positions with handpicked loyalists. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents about 150,000 workers at three dozen agencies, filed a lawsuit challenging the measure.
“This gleeful hatred of the federal workforce will lead to nothing good,” Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who represents 140,000 federal workers in Virginia, told reporters.
Trump’s decision to shut down diversity programs drew immediate condemnation from Democrats and civil rights advocates, who argue that such efforts are necessary to address structural racism and long-standing inequalities.
Trump also sought to discourage private companies that receive government contracts from using DEI programs and called on government agencies to identify anyone who may be the subject of a civil investigation.
In an order Wednesday, Trump rescinded a 1965 executive order that required federal contractors to use affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity and prohibited them from discriminating in employment practices.
The decades-old order, signed by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson, was seen as a significant moment of progress in the civil rights movement.
With information from Reuters.
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