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The Trump administration on Wednesday threatened federal employees with “harsh consequences” if they did not report colleagues who defied orders to purge their agencies’ diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Tens of thousands of workers have been warned that authorities will not tolerate any attempt to “hide these programs using coded or imprecise language.” The emails sent, based on an Office of Personnel Management template, gave employees 10 days to report their observations to a special email account without risking disciplinary action.
“There will be no negative consequences if we communicate this information in a timely manner,” the template sent to agency heads says. “However, failure to provide this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.”
The post also said: “These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination. »
Some agencies, like the Department of Education and the State Department, sent the template to their employees on Wednesday. Other agencies made slight changes when sending emails to their employees. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, has said that failure to report DEI efforts “would result in” adverse consequences.
These warnings represent a dramatic escalation of President Trump’s war on diversity programs that seek to reverse decades of systemic inequity. They were also part of a broader attack on the federal workforce, which the president has long viewed as a bloated bureaucracy. He pledged to cut departments and ordered remote workers to return to the office.
In his inaugural address, Mr. Trump said he would cease efforts to “socially integrate race and gender into all aspects of public and private life.”
“We will forge a colorblind, merit-based society,” Mr. Trump said.
On Tuesday evening, the Trump administration issued a memorandum that employees working in DEI offices across the government would be placed on administrative leave by 5 p.m. Wednesday, the first step toward fully closing offices and programs. Agencies have been ordered to develop plans to lay off office staff members, who are also responsible for addressing accessibility issues for people with disabilities, by Jan. 31.
The directive was felt a few hours after the publication of this memorandum.
Orders to stop work were issued as early as Wednesday morning. A contractor for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, was asked to halt a project to collect demographic data for the agency, which for years has documented details about the gender, race, and veteran status. The person said the results of a DEI survey conducted last year would no longer be released next month, as planned.
Also Wednesday, a planned livestream by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. was canceled, according to an email obtained by The New York Times. The event for asylum and refugee officials, scheduled for Jan. 29, was to include speakers discussing Dr. King’s legacy and a reading of his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, said Mr. Trump’s attacks on DEI were “just a smokescreen to fire public employees.”
“The federal government already hires and promotes exclusively on the basis of merit,” Mr. Kelley said.
Dariely Rodriguez, acting co-chief counsel for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said the orders betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of DEI initiatives and that the federal government must still comply with the civil rights laws.
“DEI has nothing to do with preferential treatment,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “It’s about breaking down barriers.”
In recent days, Mr. Trump revoked a 60-year-old executive order, dating back to Lyndon B. Johnson, that banned discrimination in hiring practices in federal government contracts. And he headed the Federal Aviation Administration to end hiring practices that seek diversity, equity and inclusion, saying such practices put airline passengers at risk.
The Trump administration said that under the Biden administration, the FAA “specifically sought to recruit and hire individuals with serious disabilities who could impact the performance of their essential lifesaving duties.” He cited no examples, and administration officials did not respond to a request to provide one.
Some conservative groups welcomed Mr. Trump’s actions. Yukong Mike Zhao, president of the Asian-American Education Coalition, called Mr. Trump’s orders “a major milestone in the progress of civil rights in the United States and a crucial step toward building a colorblind society.
“Affirmative action and woke DEI programs are racism in disguise,” said Mr. Zhao, whose group supported the lawsuit against Harvard that led to the reversal of affirmative action in college admissions. university.
The barrage of efforts in recent days has sown fear and confusion throughout the federal workforce, according to employees who spoke to the Times.
An administration employee who received the email urging employees to report their colleagues said it made them feel like they were being recruited by the Gestapo. Another employee told the Times that the directive to report colleagues made him feel like he was living in the Soviet Union. The Times reviewed emails from more than a half-dozen agencies, including AmeriCorps, which oversees volunteers and service programs.
Several agencies have declared their intention to comply with the new rules.
A CIA spokeswoman said Wednesday that the agency had disbanded its diversity and inclusion office and that its employees were “focused on our intelligence mission.”
Under former CIA Director William J. Burns, the diversity office had provided training to intelligence officers on promoting inclusive environments and improving recruiting.
Other agencies still didn’t know what Mr. Trump’s orders meant for them. At the Environmental Protection Agency, which has an Office for Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights, some employees said they were unsure if they would have a job Thursday.
Matthew Tejada, who served as deputy assistant administrator for environmental justice under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said he hired many people who might be at risk.
“People don’t work at EPA because they want a federal job,” Mr. Tejada said. “They work at the EPA because they want to protect the environment and people’s health.”
Michael D. Shearing, Julien Barnes And Eric Schmitt reports contributed.