Trump admin tells agencies to start firing DEI staffers
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President Trump on Tuesday at the White House. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
The Trump administration is directing the heads of federal agencies to "take action to terminate" staffers of DEI offices, according to a memo from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management issued Friday night.
Why it matters: The White House purge of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) programs and workers, begun Monday, is happening at lightning speed.
State of play: "[E]ach agency, department, or commission head shall take action to terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and 'environmental justice' offices and positions within sixty days," the memo reads.
- The memo updates a directive sent earlier this week that told agencies to submit written plans for executing a "reduction-in-force," i.e., layoffs, no later than January 31.
- But the new memo says agencies should start issuing these reduction-in-force notices now.
- It's not clear how many DEI staffers there are within the federal government, which employs millions of workers.
- In many cases it may not be possible to simply fire these workers; processes for doing so will vary.
Zoom in: The memo Friday night follows a directive issued earlier this week that ordered department and agency heads to close DEI offices — some of which are tasked with addressing accessibility issues for disabled people.
- Agencies were ordered to put staff on paid leave, as well as take down all DEI websites, social accounts, and "outward facing media." They were also told to withdraw any plans in the equity and inclusion space and cancel all trainings and contracts.
- The directive included an email template that called on government employees to snitch on colleagues that were continuing these practices.
Between the lines: The barrage of orders on DEI is creating an atmosphere of fear and anxiety for both the workers who were put on leave and other federal employees, NBC reported this week.
- The Trump administration argues that these programs are actually discriminatory for giving preference to people based on their racial, ethnic or gender identity.
What they're saying: "Ultimately, these attacks on DEIA are just 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," said a statement from the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal employee union, from earlier in the week when the first directive was issued.
Zoom out: The crackdown is moving in parallel to a retreat from these policies in corporate America. On Friday, Target said it was pulling back on DEI.
- A few companies are defending their practices, though, including Costco and JPMorgan Chase.
Context: Trump's orders targeted a number of policies from the Biden administration, which sought to cast a wider net in hiring.
- Those efforts did increase the share of federal employees with disabilities in particular.
