NASA Jettisons Ex-DEI Chief After Failing to Rebrand Effort to Evade Trump Order
Meanwhile, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory has some great projects lined up for 2025, which will likely be more successful without DEI interference.
Legal Insurrection readers may remember my recent post on Neela Rajendra.
Rajendra once held the Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Officer role at NASA’s famous Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is steeped in the DEI movement, having co-founded the Science of Diversity & Inclusion Initiative (SODI) and advised various organizations on DEI strategies.
The organization retained Rajendra after rebranding her position in an apparent effort to evade President Donald Trump’s executive orders regarding the ending of DEI. She managed to cling to her job, even after 900 others at JPL were terminated.
Less than a week after this evasion came to light courtesy of the Washington Free Beacon, NASA jettisoned Rajendra.
NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory has parted ways with its top diversity officer, Neela Rajendra, after the Washington Free Beacon reported that the lab had changed her title in an effort to keep her.
“Neela Rajendra is no longer working at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory],” lab director Laurie Leshin said in an all-staff email on Thursday. “We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization. We wish her the very best.”
Leshin added that the newly formed Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success—intended to replace the DEI team Rajendra had led—would be moved to the Office of Human Resources.
A quick review of Rajendra’s vision for her rebranded role demonstrates that it was clearly DEI by another name.
On Mar. 10, NASA brass sent an email stating Rajendra would now be the “Chief of the Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success” — an office that would be responsible for lab “affinity groups” including the “Black Excellence Strategic Team,” the outlet said.
In a LinkedIn job description, Rajendra stated her job as chief of the newly formed office was focused on “unlocking our potential to Dare Mighty things TOGETHER.”
“I believe this change is essential for [Jet Propulsion Lab’s] future success and aligns well with Neela’s strengths and focus over the last year,” director Leshin wrote to staff at the time in an email obtained by the Beacon.
Rajendra led efforts to diversify NASA, including promoting the “Space Workforce 2030” pledge, which focused on hiring women and minorities.
Thanks to X.com and the rest of the new and revitalized media, “business as usual” will not continue under Trump 2.0. Rajendra was not the first one to be identified as a bitter clinger to the woke ways, nor is she likely to be the last.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab just parted ways with its top DEI officer, Neela Rajendra—days after we revealed the lab had protected her from layoffs and quietly rebranded her role to avoid mention of the terms diversity, equity, and inclusion.
If she’s polishing up her résumé,… pic.twitter.com/A2R4iqEDMD
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) April 11, 2025
However, the swift termination shows that bureaucrats who try to evade the orders of the nation’s Chief Executive are not likely to last long…even under another name.
I would like to point out that JPL has a roster of interesting missions planned, including NISAR (NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar). This is a joint mission between NASA and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to monitor Earth’s surface changes, including phenomena like earthquakes, volcanoes, and ice sheet dynamics.
JPL is also involved with the Moon Rover Trio called CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration) project, which consists of three suitcase-sized, autonomous lunar rovers designed to work collaboratively without direct human control. These rovers are part of a technology demonstration aimed at showcasing the potential for cooperative robotic exploration on the Moon and is set to launch sometime later this year.
The Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Exploration, or CADRE, rovers are a trio of suitcase-sized robotic wheeled explorers for which cooperation is the name of the game. They will fly to the moon’s Reiner Gamma region on the second mission by Houston company Intuitive Machines, where they will act as a proof of concept to showcase how robots can work together on another world without the explicit interference of humans.
“We have been in overdrive getting this tech demo ready for its lunar adventure,” Subha Comandur, the CADRE project manager at JPL, said in a press statement. “It’s been nearly round-the-clock testing and sometimes re-testing, but the team’s hard work is paying off. Now we know that these rovers are ready to show what a team of little space robots can accomplish together.”
All of these great projects will likely be more successful without DEI interference.
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Comments
Greatest article title ever!!!
ty Leslie..
DLTDHYITAOTWO Neela.
Next, NASA needs to jettison everyone who thought that trying to evade the President’s clear directive was a good idea.
Jettison: to discard, get rid of, lighten a ship, remove something totally unnecessary such as an unqualified person who was hired as a diversity, equity or inclusion token
Ideally at 40-50 miles above the surface of the planet. Hey Neela, the view from your new office is incredible.
““We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization.”
I can think of another one right off. If that is what Leshan thinks she should be shown the door, too.
Outstanding idea. Submit it to DOGE.
Now ‘part ways with’ whatever scumbag above her approved changing her title.
This can’t be allowed. ‘Oh hey we tried to ignore your order to fire them, but now that you found us out, we’ll just fire them like we were supposed to’.
No.
You protect them, you get your stuff thrown in a cardboard box with them.
DEI people is not legal according to the Constitution and The Civil Rights Act. I am retired now but likely these people were attached to HR, which are not greatly loved by all in any company. I cannot see why any company or group (even if it is part of the government or academia) would do such a thing unless they feel they are not covered by the same laws the rest of the people have to follow, which is wrong. DEI is trying to break apart the fact of unity in this country for all races.
In some ways the HR department is seen to the Soviet political officer attached to each ship or battalion/company.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3p082t/what_were_the_roles_and_duties_of_political/
One in every post office and cub scout troop.
One in every apartment building and on every block.
Wife’s company has an HR dept that is out of control. They want to be in on every decision. Demands to be made part of the hiring team, stormed into a co workers office and demanded she remove a knit cross mural hanging on the wall, hands out diversity and gay stuff, etc etc.
I read HR people are always drawn as cats in cartoons because they look and act friendly, but they play with their food awhile before they kill it.
Thus Catbert!
They’re probably already on this, but a good idea would be a deep dive and special regulations for HR departments so they dare not stray into DEI territory. DOGE should have a focus on the HR departments.
So will those people in “the organization” that disobeyed the clear and specific order of the Chief Executive also be terminated for insubordination? Such actions cannot be ignored or there will be trouble down the road. Guaranteed.
I think that you wanted to use the word “obvious” here in place of “apparent.”
Saying “We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization.” does not sound like the DEI cancer has been excised from JPL.
Having them (whomever “them” is) attempt to rebrand the DEI officer’s job title and retain her does not sound like the DEI cancer has been fully excised from JPL. Anyone involved in the attempted deception needs to lose their jobs for insubordination. And if that means going all the way to the top of the JPL administration then so be it. If this is ignored it will only cause trouble in the future. Guaranteed.
Since she made a lasting impact maybe they’;; name a lunar crater after her in memoriam. It will be on the dark side of course.
GMTA. But I was going to suggest that they wait for one of her policy actions to result in an actual crater here on earth, and they can name that one after her.
Definitely worthy of an uptick. Hmmm where would such a crater be do you think. Washington DC would be nice, I’m thinking though Arlington Virginia because not only is that where Boeing HQ is (close for government grifting) but also where I think they build their space junk.
I don’t believe anything gets built in Arlington besides social networks. It would be like siting heavy industry in The Hamptons..
Women and minorities. But not actual qualified people for the positions they are filling. But as long as they’re women and minorities it’s Ok, right?
Space Workforce of 2030 must be comprised of people who got there without a DEI boost. It would be hard to back this out for women and racial minorities who are actually highly competent, but that’s the flip side of DEI. We may cut too deep, but cutting a white man is just as bad as cutting a woman or minority.
We can barely get the people hired by DEI to work on earth. Why do we think that they will bother to work in space?
The product of DEI is mediocrity!!!!!!
We should be so lucky.
That is correct. Mediocrity is a high bar for most DEI’s.
It’s also a men’s gymnastics’ event, but I digress.
When I read your posting, my earworm began singing, “….because bich is German for mediocri-teeeeeeee…”
“We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization.”
True statement provided you redefine lasting to be equal to 5 minutes.
The home of truly useless employees: the DEI department.
Laurie Leshin should have been shown the door as well for trying to do an end run around Trump’s order.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
DOGE needs a tip line like “Crime Stoppers” to uncover all of this.
I know someone who was “Let go” at JPL after 30 years of service. This happened just prior to the 2024 election so it was purely a bean counters move. It was astonishing to me that a person with experience such as theirs could be cast aside for reasons other than performance. And then to read this article showing the lengths JPL would go through in order to retain someone with ZERO qualifications that would apply to the core mission at hand.
On the bright side: this former employee was able to show me the surface of mars in real time with his phone so all was not lost!
There are some open lines now at JPL. The bean counters can now rehire this person. Winning!
To fully realize the effects that DEI had on NASA, you only have to see the ISS rescue by Musk’s SpaceX team. Musk hires the brightest and the best regardless of any qualifier, and it shows up in performance. The astronauts also said Musk’s space module is way better than Boeing’s. Does that tell what DEI is good for?
Remember Obama made “Muslim outreach” a formal mission of NASA.
Black Excellence Strategic Team (BEST) was easier to put together than (BULLSH1T), just saying. Is every day with Leftists “opposite day?”
She would be the perfect candidate for a stewardess on Blue Origin.
It’s just like DEI: Gives everyone a thrill but it doesn’t go anywhere.
She missed her window of opportunity, Today Blue Origin launched an all woman crew into space (for 10 minutes). The crew included Katy Perry. Then again perhaps they would have preferred a male steward unless they were space lesbians.
They didn’t need oxygen, the flight was short enough that they could just hold their breath.
Gives new meaning to the name Blue Origin.
Oprah’s BFF Gayle King was on the flight as well as Bezo’s fiancee. Gee you don’t think he is having second thoughts do you? Also 3 others. Women all as we define them although not definable by notorious KBJ.
She can ride the rocket with bezo’s wife and katy perry.
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