Trump Administration Orders Paid Leave for Diversity Officials

Staff members overseeing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts were to be placed on paid administrative leave by 5 p.m. Wednesday.

The Trump administration on Tuesday ordered that officials overseeing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts across the federal government be placed on leave on Wednesday and that agencies take steps to close their offices.

In a memo from the Office of Personnel Management, the heads of departments and agencies were ordered to purge such officials by placing all D.E.I. staff on paid administrative leave, effective immediately, by 5 p.m. Wednesday, and to make plans for staff reductions by the end of the day on Jan. 31.

The memo also directed agencies to take down any language or advertisements about their D.E.I. initiatives and to withdraw any pending documents or directives that would undermine the new orders. It also ordered agency heads to inform D.E.I. officials that their offices would be closed and that employees would be questioned about whether there were any remaining efforts that remained "in disguise" by using coded or imprecise language.

The directive was a swift attempt to carry out elements of President Trump's Day 1 executive order dismantling federal diversity efforts. In a new executive order on Tuesday, Mr. Trump encouraged the private sector to follow the federal government's lead and "end illegal D.E.I. discrimination and preferences and comply with all federal civil-rights laws." His order also directed agencies to investigate the compliance of corporations and foundations with those laws.

While the federal government has no purview over many private-sector practices, it does have discretion to enforce its rules on heavily relied-upon private contractors and subcontractors who would be subject to the new rules. In anticipation of Mr. Trump's taking office, several companies, like Meta and McDonald's, have rolled back their D.E.I. initiatives.

The order on Tuesday said that D.E.I. policies "undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system."

"Yet in case after tragic case," the order said, "the American people have witnessed first hand the disastrous consequences of illegal, pernicious discrimination that has prioritized how people were born instead of what they were capable of doing."

Within hours of his swearing in, Mr. Trump rescinded several executive orders signed by his predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr. The first was one that Mr. Biden had signed on his first day in office instructing federal agencies to infuse equity into virtually all policymaking during his tenure.

Mr. Biden prided himself on putting racial equity at the center of his policymaking, in areas including the environment, infrastructure, the economy and health care.

Mr. Trump's orders reverse Mr. Biden's position that a government committed to reversing decades of discrimination and neglect in underserved communities is a course correction for the nation rather than a threat to its future.

The executive actions instead are attempts to fulfill Mr. Trump's promise to eradicate "radical" policy and "wasteful" spending on initiatives aimed at combating systemic inequities, which have drawn the ire of conservatives who say diversity initiatives have amounted to reverse discrimination and racial "preferences." Mr. Trump's order on Tuesday required the elimination of programs with goals of "diversity," "equity" and "equitable decision-making," among other terms.

Mr. Trump amplified these calls during his inaugural address to the nation upon taking office, vowing to stop efforts to "socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life."

"We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based," Mr. Trump declared during the address.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that the new directives should "come as no surprise."

"President Trump campaigned on ending the scourge of D.E.I. from our federal government and returning America to a merit based society where people are hired based on their skills, not for the color of their skin," the statement read. "This is another win for Americans of all races, religions, and creeds. Promises made, promises kept."

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.