Trump rolls back Equal Employment Opportunity Act in anti-diversity and inclusion executive order
President Trump has rolled back the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1965. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump has revoked the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1965, the latest update to his raft of executive orders since he was sworn into office.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an anti-trans executive order proclaiming there are “only two sexes” – which was later debunked by United States Representative Sarah McBride – and ordered the overturning of the birthright citizenship.
Trump went one step further and revoked policies which boosted diversity, equality and inclusion for historically marginalised communities, including Latine people, Native Americans and Black Americans.
The White House said in a statement: “The injection of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) into our institutions has corrupted them by replacing hard work, merit, and equality with a divisive and dangerous preferential hierarchy.”
On Tuesday (21 January), Trump revoked Executive Order 11246, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act. President Johnson signed the original order on 24 September 1965, two years after Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Order prohibited discrimination in the federal workplace based on “race, colour, religion, and national origin by those organisations receiving federal contracts and subcontracts”. It was updated two years later to include sex among the list of attributes.
Trump’s order stated: “These illegal DEI and DEIA policies also threaten the safety of American men, women, and children across the Nation by diminishing the importance of individual merit, aptitude, hard work, and determination when selecting people for jobs and services in key sectors of American society, including all levels of government, and the medical, aviation, and law-enforcement communities.”
Trump has also made it compulsory for federal employees to return to the office full-time.
The 20 January presidential action read: “Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis.”
It adds, however, “that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary”.
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