WASHINGTON — President Trump will issue an order ending federal “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs on his first day in office Monday — with an aide calling it “very fitting on MLK Day.
“It is ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing,” an incoming White House official told reporters on a press call.
“It’s actually very fitting on MLK Day.
“This order is meant to return to the promise and the hope that is captured by the civil rights champion — that one day all Americans can be treated on the basis of their character and not by the color of their skin.”
The executive order — one of dozens Trump is expected to sign immediately — will instruct senior officials in the White House Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management to determine what programs need to be gutted.
“This order is meant to create equal treatment and end DEI inside the federal government,” the Trump aide said.
“It asks for OMB and OPM to coordinate with the various agencies to terminate all discriminatory programs in the agencies — so that is going to include illegal DEI mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities.”
The order requests “a plan to dismantle the DEI bureaucracy,” the official said.
“This includes environmental justice programs, equity-related grants, equity action plans, equity initiatives, these types of things.”
OMB and OPM will “assess the cost to the taxpayer for all of these programs and give transparency to the public,” the incoming official said.
Federal DEI initiatives under outgoing President Biden focused on race, but the Trump order’s parameters will go beyond those programs, the aide said.
“We have the Federal Aviation Administration, which is actively recruiting individuals who suffer from severe intellectual disabilities,” the Trump official said.
“People have obvious concerns about airline safety if people are not being hired on the basis of capability and are being hired on the basis of characteristics that they can’t control.”
The official also cited the fact that the “USDA spent a billion dollars on environmental justice, [and] the Department of Treasury — this is a little bit a while ago now — included diversity training that said all white people, regardless of how ‘woke’ they are, contribute to racism.”
The order also will “ensure that Americans have their right to free speech” and “religious freedom” when it comes to the “use of preferred pronouns.”
The private sector already has been in the process of pulling back from DEI programming in response to the US Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which addressed the use of race in college admissions decisions.
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