Trump Orders Agencies to Close DEI Offices, Place Staff on Leave
Everything must happen by 5 PM ET today.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) memo alerting agencies to close their DEI offices and place staff on leave is real.
To every reporter asking about this: I can gladly confirm! https://t.co/gRb356vSwO
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 22, 2025
By 5PM ET today, the agencies must:
- Send an agency-wide notice to employees informing them of the closure and asking employees if they know of any efforts to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language
- Send a notification to all employees of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.
- Take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) of DEIA offices
- Withdraw any final or pending documents, directives, orders, materials and equity plans issued by the agency in response to the now-repealed Executive Order 14035, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce (June 25, 2021)
- Cancel any DEIA-related trainings and terminate any DEIA-related contractors
By mid-Thursday, the heads of the agencies have to give OPM a list of the employees and offices, DEI-related agency contracts, and explain how the agency will comply with President Donald Trump executive order.
The agencies have until the end of the month to give OPM their plan “for executing a reduction-in-force action regarding” the DEI employees and provide “a list of all contract descriptions or personnel position descriptions that were changed since November 5, 2024 to obscure their connection to” DEI programs.
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Let’s get started, folks.
This is what winning looks like!
Go you good thing!
And to think, Democrats only have themselves to blame for the position they find themselves in today.
And to quote Hillary Clinton “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired”
I don’t know why so many here were never-Trumpers at first. Not one of the other Republicans who were running for office against Trump would have done this.
Because until he decided to run for office Trump had always been a liberal Democrat. He was best friends with both Clintons. His sudden conversion to conservatism was always suspect, and I still don’t believe it was sincere. I didn’t vote for him in 2016 because I was afraid he would be the same as Clinton, but the R after his name would taint the party. If we must have a D president, let her have a D after her name.
I still think his original plan was to reach out to the Clintons and give them a major role in his administration, but they turned down his overtures. They couldn’t bear the fact that they’d lost to him, so they drove him into our hands. He governed as a conservative, and in practical terms achieved more for our cause than Reagan did, so I did support him in 2020 and last year (once he’d won the primary). And of course I’m very pleased with how the last few days have gone.
In that respect we are 100% in agreement! Indeed, it takes one to know one, and that’s one reason Reagan was so effective.
The chances that they remain on ‘paid administrative leave’ for years are quite high. Absent any changes in US statutory law, I’ll be surprised if any of them are terminated within Trump’s tenure because the protections they enjoy as civil-servants are absolutely insane and not well understood by people outside of the federal government.
One thing that Congress has to change are the laws that protect civil servants. Everyone who works for the government should be an at-will employee, fully subject to a ‘reduction-in-force’ just as employees in the private sector are. I don’t see why these changes couldn’t be included in the reconciliation bill that will be passed in the next few weeks. While those changes wouldn’t be permanent, they would be long enough to allow Trump to really fire all these losers.
Get on the ball, Congress, or get left out of office in 26 or 28.
I agree that they will likely remain on paid administrative leave for the several (?) years.
One of the problems Trump 45 had during his first administration was not following APA and extreme resistance from the deep state. Trump 47 is likely going to run into the same problems with the deep state.
Reassign the employees to some remote areas of the country. They’ll likely quit then relocate.
Yes. There are ways to rid oneself of employees who can’t be terminated at-will. Reassigning them is a time-honored way. After all, there may be a delta-smelt somewhere in the deep bayous of southern Louisiana, and someone has to wade through the swamps to count them.
Slightly more seriously, other ways to remove them would include buying them out — faster and cheaper in the long run.
“Go count the extinct fish!”
Transferred to Ice Station Zebra, Arctic Circle to count snowflakes.
not wishing to burden the good folks of southern Louisiana, I can think of several areas in Idaho and Mmontana that might just put out the welcome mat for these persons
Reassign them to custodial duties elsewhere
This is what we did when I was a fed. If they couldn’t fire you, your new office was a trailer in the woods in Montana making sure that power line next door was still there.
RIFs are still allowed. Nothing has changed there.
Did you see today’s stories on how ATF’s DEI head got a new title? And was was expected to keep on doing the same things with the new title?
By “on leave,” he means GTFO, right?
There are reduction in force rules that exists when the government job has been eliminated.
Trump will be able to fire these workers.
As long as Trump follows the rules, these workers will have to seek other federal jobs or look to the private sector.
I suspect that the agencies will try to create positions for these very valuable DEI employees.
I real elsewhere that all affirmative action – the result of an LBJ executive order – is ended. I’ll believe that when I see it.
That will be difficult, given much of the AA stuff is now enshrined in regulations/guidance.
Trump revoked the LBJ from ’66 EO 11246 that required ‘affirmative action’ in federal contracting. Coupled with ending DEI the shake up is huge. Merit will once again be the criteria, not race, sex, ethnicity or ‘gender’.
Termination of any employee promoting black racism, regardless of their race.
We need a public database of all DEI people for job screening. They will try to reinvent their image while continuing to promote DEI.
Regulations by the Administrative state and not through Congressional law can be overturned easily by the President.
The Reduction in Force (RIF) rules will apply to these positions. If your job is eliminated, you take the job of someone in a job you are qualified for and with less seniority than you. That person does the same until someone leaves the civil service.
I do not know what other positions a DEI person would be qualified for.
I’m hoping DOJ will turn its attention to States and companies that continue to enforce DEI, for their violations of civil rights/equal protection laws.
Trump will need to hire many non-woke attorneys to clean house!
Too bad he can’t just fire the bastards without severance. That’s what they deserve