Trump puts all US government diversity staff on paid leave 'immediately'

President Donald Trump has ordered that all US government staff working on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes be put on immediate paid administrative leave.

On Tuesday, the White House confirmed that all federal DEI workers had to be put on leave by 17:00 EST (22:00 GMT) the following day, before the offices and programmes in question were shut down.

In an executive order, also issued on Tuesday, Trump also called for an end to the "dangerous, demeaning and immoral" programmes.

It is unclear how many people are affected by the order, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal workers, said.

Since his inauguration, the president has acted swiftly on a number of key pledges through a raft of unilateral actions, including a crackdown on DEI. In his inaugural address, he pledged to "forge a society that is colour-blind and merit-based".

Another executive order preceding the one on Tuesday ordered declares that all DEI offices, positions and programmes be terminated within 60 days.

DEI programmes aim to promote participation in workplaces by people from a range of backgrounds.

Their backers say they address historical underrepresentation and discrimination against certain groups including racial minorities, but critics say such programmes can themselves be discriminatory.

On Tuesday, a memo was sent from the US Office of Personnel Management to the heads of government agencies, instructing them to place DEI employees on leave.

The memo's veracity was confirmed by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. It contained a number of requests, including that federal agencies submit by the end of the month "a written plan" for executing lay-offs in DEI offices.

Trump's executive order, meanwhile, took aim at what it called the "illegal" policies of DEI and DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility), framing them as being in opposition to US law.

It said these policies had the capability to "violate" important underlying civil rights laws that protect Americans from discrimination.

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The executive order requires federal hiring, promotions and performance reviews "reward individual initiative" rather than "DEI-related factors".

It also requires the US attorney general to submit, within 120 days, recommendations to encourage the private sector to end similar diversity efforts.

And the order revokes a civil-rights-era executive order, signed by former President Lyndon B Johnson, that made it illegal for federal contractors to discriminate on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin when hiring. This was later amended to also prevent discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Revoking that order could have ripple effects in the federal and private sector, said Alvin Tillery, a political scientist and co-founder of the 2040 Strategy Group, which does DEI training in the private sector.

He said that theoretically, a company with only white employees that now refuses to hire black people, or Latinos, or women, for example, "can go for a federal contract without showing that your processes are compliant" with federal diversity standards.

It could also eliminate training programmes aimed at curbing discrimination or reinforcing positive behaviour, critics say.

"People are going to be ill-informed about what discrimination is and what it looks like," said Les Alderman, a DC-based civil rights lawyer who represents federal and congressional workers.

"Good-hearted people are going to be wrong about some things that we do and it is going to have consequences."

Unions representing federal employees have condemned Trump's executive orders.

The AFGE argues that diversity programmes have reduced gender and racial pay disparities in the federal workforce, and voiced its fear that Trump's order could "turn federal hiring and firing decisions into loyalty tests".

The order was "designed to intimidate and attack non-partisan civil servants", said National Federation of Federal Workers national president Randy Erwin.

Conservatives defended Trump's actions. They were "a major milestone in American civil rights progress and a critical step towards building a colorblind society," Yukong Mike Zhao, the president of the Asian American Coalition for Education, told the New York Times.

"Affirmative action and woke DEI programmes are racism in disguise," Mr Zhao added.

Several large US companies have ended or scaled back their DEI programmes in recent weeks, including McDonald's, Walmart and Facebook parent company Meta. Others, like Apple and retailers Target and Costco, have publicly defended theirs.

Mr Tillery said that, while he believes the former Biden administration's effort to add DEI positions across government was well intentioned, it did not meet its goals.

"The DEI jobs were underfunded, understaffed, the people doing the work were heroes with very few resources," he said. "But now we're going to go to zero."

Clarification 23 January 2025: This story was amended to reflect that the order signed by President Johnson prevented discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin - and it was through later amendments that provisions were also made for sexual orientation and gender identity.