On Monday, just hours into his second term, President Donald J. Trump issued an order prohibiting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives across the federal government, dismantling various programs focused on race and gender, and asserting that there are only “two sexes” in America.
On Tuesday, the administration released a memo instructing federal agencies to place all diversity staff on paid leave, with plans for their eventual termination, according to CBS News. The memo also directed agencies to question employees about any attempts to conceal such programs through ambiguous or coded language.
Trump declared in his inauguration speech on Monday, “We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.”
A memo issued Tuesday evening by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management directed all federal DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) employees to be placed on leave by Wednesday evening.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the directive in a post on X, referencing reporting by CBS News.
To every reporter asking about this: I can gladly confirm! https://t.co/gRb356vSwO
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 22, 2025
The orders eliminate funding for DEI initiatives across all federal agencies as part of an effort to “end DEI inside the federal government,” according to Trump administration officials. They also revoke multiple executive orders and actions from previous administrations that were designed to advance diversity within federal institutions.
Trump’s executive order titled, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” reads:
The Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government, in areas ranging from airline safety to the military. This was a concerted effort stemming from President Biden’s first day in office, when he issued Executive Order 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”
“Pursuant to Executive Order 13985 and follow-on orders, nearly every Federal agency and entity submitted “Equity Action Plans” to detail the ways that they have furthered DEIs infiltration of the Federal Government. The public release of these plans demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination. That ends today. Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great.
Trump’s executive order titled, “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions” reads:
The previous administration has embedded deeply unpopular, inflationary, illegal, and radical practices within every agency and office of the Federal Government. The injection of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) into our institutions has corrupted them by replacing hard work, merit, and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy. Orders to open the borders have endangered the American people and dissolved Federal, State, and local resources that should be used to benefit the American people. Climate extremism has exploded inflation and overburdened businesses with regulation.
To commence the policies that will make our Nation united, fair, safe, and prosperous again, it is the policy of the United States to restore common sense to the Federal Government and unleash the potential of the American citizen. The revocations within this order will be the first of many steps the United States Federal Government will take to repair our institutions and our economy.
Trump’s executive order titled, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government” reads:
Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women’s domestic abuse shelters to women’s workplace showers. This is wrong. Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself.
This unhealthy road is paved by an ongoing and purposeful attack against the ordinary and longstanding use and understanding of biological and scientific terms, replacing the immutable biological reality of sex with an internal, fluid, and subjective sense of self unmoored from biological facts. Invalidating the true and biological category of “woman” improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept.
Accordingly, my Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.
