Trump Administration Directs All Federal DEI Employees Be Put on Leave

The memo directs agencies to place DEI employees on paid leave by 5 p.m. on Jan. 22.

President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Jan. 21, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo on Jan. 21 instructing that all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) employees must be put on paid leave as agencies work to dismantle DEI initiatives.

The OPM is an independent agency of the federal government that manages the federal civil service.

The memo directs agencies to place DEI employees on paid leave by 5 p.m. on Jan. 22 and to remove all websites and social media accounts associated with DEI initiatives by the same time.

Shortly after his inauguration, President Donald Trump issued an executive order aimed at eliminating DEI-focused policies and programs within the federal government.

According to the memo, federal agencies are required to cancel all DEI-related training programs and terminate any contractors involved in the initiatives.

Agencies were required to compile a list of federal DEI offices and staff working in those offices as of Nov. 5, 2024, and to submit a plan for executing a “reduction-in-force action” against those workers to the OPM by Jan. 31.

The memo also asks for a list of any contract or position descriptions that were changed after the Nov. 5 election “to obscure their connection” to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) programs. This list must be submitted no later than Jan. 31.

Trump’s executive order criticized the former Biden administration for forcing “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” into virtually “all aspects” of the federal government through DEI initiatives.

It stated that “nearly every federal agency and entity submitted Equity Action Plans to detail the ways that they have furthered DEIs [sic] infiltration of the federal government” following former president Joe Biden’s previous directive.

“The public release of these plans demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination. That ends today,” the order stated.

Trump’s order directs the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the attorney general, and the director of the OPM to terminate “all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.”

The order mandates that federal agencies terminate all offices and positions related to environmental justice, as well as any equity-focused action plans, grants, and contracts within 60 days of the order’s issuance.

It also requires agencies to compile a list of grantees that received federal funding to implement DEI and environmental justice programs since Jan. 20, 2021, and federal contractors who have provided DEI training to their employees.

During his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump said that he aims to “end the government policy of trying 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,” Trump said in his address. “As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female.”

Among Trump’s presidential executive orders signed on inauguration day was a broad recission of 78 of Biden’s executive orders, many of which set out the former administration’s DEI agenda.

These included, among others, Biden’s Executive Order 14035, “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce”; Executive Order 14091, “Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government”; Executive Order 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government”; and several of Biden’s orders for “Advancing Educational Equity” regarding various racial groups.

In addition to revoking Biden’s orders, the Trump administration in its second term will likely also bring stronger enforcement of U.S. civil rights laws for both public and private employees. The U.S. Department of Labor, which regulates private companies on issues of discrimination, states that “the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.”

Kevin Stocklin contributed to this report.

Correction: A previous version of this article attributed the memo to the incorrect author. The Epoch Times regrets the error.