“We will build a society that embraces colorblindness and meritocracy,” President Donald Trump remarked.
Shortly after his inauguration, President Donald Trump moved to act on his commitment to repeal the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies championed by the Biden administration.
By signing an executive order named “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” President Trump
rescinded what he considered his predecessor’s “unlawful and unethical discrimination programs, disguised as ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion.’”
The directive requires the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. Attorney General, and the director of the Office of Personnel Management to eliminate “all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities across the federal government, regardless of their naming.”
This mandate encompasses all federal employees, contractors, and grantees, as stipulated by the order.
In his
inaugural address, Trump committed to “cease government practices aimed at socially engineering race and gender into every facet of public and private life.”
“We will build a society that embraces colorblindness and meritocracy,” Trump emphasized.
On his inauguration day, Trump also signed a comprehensive
rescission of 78 of Biden’s executive orders, a significant number of which underpinned the former administration’s DEI policies. Notable rescinded orders include Biden’s Executive Order 14035 “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce,” Executive Order 14091 “Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” Executive Order 13985 “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” along with several directives focused on “Advancing Educational Equity” among various racial groups.
During his presidency, Biden enacted various executive orders promoting DEI principles across all federal agencies and the military.
In addition to reversing Biden’s orders, the Trump administration in its second term is expected to place stronger emphasis on enforcing U.S. civil rights laws for public and private employees. The U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees private companies regarding discrimination issues,
clarifies that “the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”
Just prior to Trump’s inauguration, the FBI discreetly dismantled its DEI department in December, doing so without any formal notice or explanation.
Trump
expressed concerns about the timing of this decision on Truth Social, alleging “corruption” within the bureau, and insisted that “the FBI preserve and retain all records, documents, and information regarding the now-defunct DEI Office—this should never have existed and, if it did, should have been shut down long ago.”
In 2020, Trump enacted his initial
executive order concerning DEI, claiming it would “combat offensive and anti-American race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating” aimed at government employees and military personnel.
The order stipulated that “the official policy of the United States is to refrain from promoting race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating within the Federal workforce or the Uniformed Services, and to prevent grant funds from being allocated for these purposes. Furthermore, federal contractors will be barred from instilling such views in their employees.”
This directive was promptly revoked by President Joe Biden upon his inauguration.
Biden, asserting that “the lasting impacts of employment discrimination, systemic racism, and gender inequality persist today,” issued an executive order in June 2021 that
established “a comprehensive initiative aimed at promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility throughout all facets of the Federal workforce.”
In addition to race-based policies on hiring, promotions, and training, a
2024 investigation conducted by Parents Defending Education, a parental rights organization, revealed that the Biden administration had allocated over $1 billion for DEI salaries and grants in K-12 educational institutions.
Federal courts have frequently overturned the Biden administration’s race-based initiatives, including invalidating $4 billion worth of federal grants intended for non-white farmers in 2021 and preferences in 2024 for minority-owned small businesses.
In a significant 2022 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that Harvard University and the University of North Carolina breached civil rights laws by discriminating based on race or gender in their admissions processes. This ruling affects entities receiving government funding and is likely to impact private organizations, prompting many to
eliminate their DEI initiatives in recent months.
DEI proponents have vehemently opposed Trump’s initiatives to eliminate these programs.
The ACLU committed to opposing a
position paper authored by staff members Alexi Agathocleous, Kim Conway, and ReNika Moore, asserting intentions to “resist the anticipated second Trump administration’s regression in civil rights enforcement.”
“Ironically,” the authors expressed, “a Trump DOJ would likely wield the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, alongside pivotal civil rights legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964—which includes Title VI, prohibiting discrimination by recipients of federal funding based on race, color, or national origin, and Title VII, which bars employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin—in its pursuits.”
In a November 2024 article for the Harvard Business Review, NYU law professors Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow, along with Christina Joseph, project director of the advancing DEI initiative,
indicated that Trump’s administration is expected to implement strategies against DEI, which may involve ant-DEI executive orders, abolishing DEI departments within the federal government, rigorously enforcing laws against racial preferences and quotas, appointing conservative judges to the federal bench, and eliminating “disparate impact” criteria from anti-discrimination legislation. Disparate impact allows courts and regulatory bodies to identify discrimination even in the absence of explicit discriminatory acts, based solely on unequal results in terms of race or gender.
The authors advocated that private companies adopt a three-tier approach: adhere to the law “but don’t over-adapt”; create a safe environment for “trans individuals, immigrants, pregnant workers, and people of color” within their organizations; and “utilize their influential platforms to champion DEI advocacy in the public realm.”
Corporations such as Meta, Walmart, Ford, McDonald’s, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Tractor Supply Company, Lowe’s, Molson Coors, Nissan, Toyota, Stanley Black & Decker, and others have started to dismantle or reduce their DEI programs. Many businesses seem to have determined that DEI initiatives might expose them to legal risks and conflict with federal and state civil rights statutes prohibiting discrimination based on race and gender, while also breaching their fiduciary responsibilities to investors and shareholders.
In reaction to Trump’s 2020 decree banning DEI in government, UCLA law school released a position paper indicating that this order “significantly jeopardized the ongoing efforts to address workplace racial disparities … However, this ‘equity gag order’ was intended to silence the use of terminology that fell within the ambiguous definitions of ‘divisive concepts’ and ‘race and sex scapegoating.’”
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