‘Segregated Amenities’ Not Explicitly Banned in Federal Contracts After Trump DEI Order

President Donald Trump’s current anti-DEI directive took goal at a Civil Rights Period nondiscrimination order that prohibited authorities contractors from having segregated amenities.

A public memo issued by the Common Companies Administration in February states that an government order signed by Trump on Jan. 21, 2025 — “Ending Unlawful Discrimination and Restoring Benefit-Based mostly Alternative” — nullifies Government Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965.

Johnson’s order explicitly prohibited discrimination in employment by federal contractors and subcontractors primarily based on race, colour, faith, intercourse, or nationwide origin. It was revised by President Barack Obama to additionally prohibit discrimination primarily based on gender id.

Whereas there are nonetheless state and federal legal guidelines that outlaw segregation and discrimination — which authorities contractors are anticipated to observe — the motion is the most recent sweeping change by the Trump administration to severely curtail any language associated to variety, fairness and inclusion.

“It is symbolic, nevertheless it’s extremely significant in its symbolism,” Melissa Murray, a constitutional legislation professor at New York College informed NPR, which first highlighted the change.

“These provisions that required federal contractors to stick to and adjust to federal civil rights legal guidelines and to keep up built-in relatively than segregated workplaces have been all a part of the federal authorities’s efforts to facilitate the settlement that led to integration within the Nineteen Fifties and Nineteen Sixties.”

Murray continued: “The truth that they’re now excluding these provisions from the necessities for federal contractors, I feel, speaks volumes.”

An nameless federal employee additionally informed the outlet that Trump’s methodology of eliminating DEI language from the federal contract course of is much from enterprise as normal.

“The best way that they are implementing this within the contracting discipline is actually subverting democracy — you are supposed to permit companies to touch upon this, contracting officers to touch upon it, and suppose by the implications rigorously,” famous the federal employee, who stated they have been “shocked” by the directive.

“By doing this, they’re primarily ramming issues by hoping nobody’s going to note,” they added.

In an announcement to NPR, GSA spokesperson Will Powell wrote, “GSA has taken quick motion to totally implement all present government orders and is dedicated to taking motion to implement any new government orders.”

The memo is likely one of the newest steps the Trump administration has taken to erase all proof of “DEI” within the federal authorities.

Earlier this month, a Defense Department purge of DEI content led to U.S. army branches flagging tens of hundreds of on-line photographs and posts for deletion. The Related Press compiled an archive of the flagged info, which included photos of the Tuskegee airmen, photographs of feminine Marines and content material associated to celebrations of Hispanic or Native heritage.

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Nevertheless, among the flagged content material raised questions on DEI requirements and high quality management because the federal authorities hustles to fulfill Trump’s calls for.

Pictures of famed WWII bomber The Enola Homosexual have been flagged, presumably as a result of the identify of the airplane was seen within the picture. The Enola Homosexual — which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945 — was named for Enola Homosexual Tibbets, the mom of its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets.

Different “Homosexual” imagery flagged included service members with the final identify Homosexual, with the identify seen on their uniform.

“We’re happy by the fast compliance throughout the Division with the directive eradicating DEI content material from all platforms,” Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot beforehand stated in an announcement concerning the archive. “Within the uncommon instances that content material is eliminated that’s out of the clearly outlined scope of the directive, we instruct parts accordingly.”