President Trump targets DEI mandates for federal employees

• President Trump took aim at federal DEI policies in his inaugural address on Monday.
• He pledged to reverse executive orders from Biden, in favor of a "merit-based" society.
• On Tuesday, the White House issued a presidential order ending DEI-based hiring in the FAA.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the federal government.

Federal agencies and departments have 60 days from the signing of the order to end DEI-related practices.

The executive order will be carried out by the US Office of Personnel Management and the Attorney General, who will review all existing federal employment practices, union contracts, and training policies to ensure compliance with the DEI termination order.

"Federal employment practices, including Federal employee performance reviews, shall reward individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work and shall not under any circumstances consider DEI or DEIA factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements," the order read.

A separate order for the Federal Aviation Agency

On Tuesday, Trump issued a separate presidential action ending DEI-based hiring in the Federal Aviation Agency.

The order called for the immediate removal of DEI hiring practices, including those that take into consideration race, sex, or disability, in the FAA.

All DEI initiatives, the order continued, will be replaced with practices of "hiring, promoting, and otherwise treating employees on the basis of individual capability, competence, achievement, and dedication."

As of Tuesday night, the contents of at least two web pages detailing DEI initiatives and DEI hiring at the FAA have been taken down.

The FAA and its overseeing body, the Department of Transportation, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

DEI in the federal government

Trump also used his inaugural address Monday to target DEI initiatives in the federal government.

"This week, I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life," he said Monday. "We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based."

He said it will be official US policy that "there are only two genders: male and female."

The remarks echoed his statements during a rally a day earlier when he pledged to end DEI mandates in government and the private sector.

Like many orders Trump signed on his first day, the move aims to undo several orders issued by Joe Biden during his presidency.

In one executive action from June 2021, Biden said the federal government is the largest employer in the nation and, thus, "must be a model for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, where all employees are treated with dignity and respect."

In response, the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) Talent Sourcing for America initiative was launched in September of 2022.

A 2022 report from the Office of Personnel Management said the government-wide DEIA initiative included a plan to prioritize equity for LGBTQI+ employees by "expanding the usage of gender markers and pronouns that respect transgender, gender non-conforming, and non-binary employees; and working to create a more inclusive workplace."

The report showed minimal changes in the federal workforce's demographics between fiscal years 2017 and 2021, which encompassed most of Trump's first term. This included "minor" changes in the shares of the federal workforce by race and gender.

A 2024 report from OPM found minor increases in federal staffing diversity under the Biden administration after the DEIA objectives were announced, but indicated the office's targets for diversity and equity initiatives were not met.

Though there had been only slight workforce demographic changes under the Biden administration, the Trump administration's first official statement released Monday reiterated his plans to "freeze bureaucrat hiring except in essential areas to end the onslaught of useless and overpaid DEI activists buried into the federal workforce," and "establish male and female as biological reality and protect women from radical gender ideology."

Meanwhile, several companies — including the nation's largest private employer, Walmart — have been reversing course on DEI initiatives in the weeks following Trump's election in November.