NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Lays Off 900, Kept Chief DEI Officer

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Lays Off 900, Kept Chief DEI Officer

NASA’s iconic Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has faced significant workforce reductions in 2024, with two rounds of layoffs affecting 855 employees since the end of 2024. These cuts stem from budget constraints and shifting priorities within NASA’s funding allocations.

The 13% reduction in the workforce affected the technical staff, especially those associated with the Mars Sample Return mission.

One issue is that the funds that the lab would receive for its role in the ambitious, multi-billion dollar Mars Sample Return mission were sharply reduced from over $900 million to around just $300 million this year. The mission’s future remains uncertain, pending a further review that could decide its fate.

These latest cuts don’t necessarily pertain to the Mars mission specifically, according to the memo, and were taken to fall within available funds for the 2025 federal fiscal year, which commenced in October.

“This reduction is spread across essentially all areas of the Lab including our technical, project, business, and support areas,” Leshin wrote. “We have taken seriously the need to re-size our workforce, whether direct-funded (project) or funded on overhead (burden).”

However, one person who has remained despite President Donald Trump’s push to end Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the federal government is Neela Rajendra.

Rajendra once held the role of Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer at the organization. She is steeped in the DEI movement, having co-founded the Science of Diversity & Inclusion Initiative (SODI) and advised various organizations on DEI strategies.

However, she is now rebranded as the Chief of the Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success. The organization’s professional page highlights all the DEI madness she has foisted onto JPL.

Before JPL, Neela was Executive Director and co-founder of the Science of Diversity & Inclusion Initiative (SODI), where she built an organization of over 100 social scientists and 15 partner companies, including BlackRock, GE, and Google, to advance evidenced-based approaches for selecting and promoting the best talent. Through her leadership, SODI launched 12 research projects with eight companies in four years, leading to publications in esteemed journals such as the Journal of Human Resources.

I will simply note Najendra’s Bachelor’s degree is in science…political science.

Aaron Sibarium of the Washington Free Beacon succinctly explains the many problems associated with a non-science-oriented social justice activist keeping her post as the technical teams are downsized.

Rajendra, who helped organize a project to recruit women and minorities to the space industry, has argued that “extreme deadline[s]” are an obstacle to “inclusion,” stating on a 2022 podcast that “some people might be left behind” by the “super fast pace.”

The comment came two years before a pair of NASA astronauts were stranded on the International Space Station for nine months due to a faulty propulsion system, raising questions about why the agency had spent millions on DEI when it couldn’t even bring back space rocks from Mars or its own employees from orbit.

NEW: NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab laid off 900 workers due to budget cuts. But it refuses to fire its top DEI officer, Neela Rajendra, who has said that "extreme deadlines" are an obstacle to "inclusion."

The lab changed her title but kept many of her duties the same. pic.twitter.com/1SH1qjKsoN

— Aaron Sibarium (@aaronsibarium) April 1, 2025

I guess Rajendra thinks her catering to the LGBTQIA+ community will get mankind to Mars faster, per a 2023 interview related to “Space Pride”.

Some space organizations are now trying to address the shortfall in provisions for the LGBTQIA+ community. Indeed, Neela Rajendra, who is now chief inclusion officer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, believes a lot of organizations have ramped up their efforts on diversity, equity and inclusivity issues in recent years. “I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say there was a world reckoning following the murder of George Floyd [in 2020],” she says. “[It led to greater] awareness and willingness and commitment to change from the perspective of diversity, equity and inclusion.”

One of the first things she did in her role was to ensure that the leaders of various employee resource groups, which represent marginalized populations in the organization, are paid for their time. As she sees it, people should not be expected to do the work for free, as is so often the case. JPL also pays for group leaders to attend diversity-related professional development conferences. She says that while the atmosphere at the organization is generally embracing of freedom of expression, many very practical, pressing and frustratingly familiar challenges remain, ranging from installing gender-neutral toilets to automating how pronouns of choice are included in JPL e-mails.

In a nutshell, Rajendra’s new title, “Chief of the Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success,” retains many of her previous responsibilities. This move is clearly an attempt to bypass the federal restrictions on DEI programs.

Thanks to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), X, and citizen journalists, such moves cannot be hidden and will not be ignored.

As an American, I take pride in innovative SpaceX rescuing our astronauts. They were able to do so because their teams didn’t jump through DEI hoops while their funding was diverted to pronoun promotion and new bathrooms.

As an American, I am proud that SpaceX’s crew is completing a polar orbit for the first time (I will have more on that later).

As an American, I hope to feel pride when our flag is planted, again, on the Moon and then on Mars. But unless the anchors of DEI are jettisoned and merit, innovation, and hard work are reprioritized, that may not happen.

I certainly hope the Trump administration, who supports space exploration, reviews the continuation of DEI another name…it stinks as much despite the fancy title.

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