DEI staffers moved to be put on paid leave by Trump

Janine Phakdeetham, Bloomberg News on Jan 21, 2025

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Federal employees in diversity, equity and inclusion roles will be placed on paid leave Wednesday as their offices related to those programs are being ordered to shut down after President Donald Trump’s executive orders, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed in a post on X.

Under a memorandum from the Office of Personnel Management, agencies were also instructed to cancel diversity, equality, inclusion trainings and terminate related contracts, and pull down websites and social media accounts for federal DEI-focused offices. Agencies would be given a week to submit a written plan for removing those employees from the federal workforce.

Trump signed executive orders in the first hours of his new term as president to end DEI efforts in the federal government, terminate diversity programs, and remove related offices and positions.

He also rescinded more than a dozen DEI-related executive orders from former President Joe Biden’s administration, including one that sought to overturn Trump’s own ban on the federal government and its contractors from training employees on racial bias.

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(With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron and Stephanie Lai.)