By Andrea Shalal and Matt Spetalnick
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. agencies under President Donald Trump pushed ahead on Thursday on his orders to reshape the federal bureaucracy, scrapping diversity programs, rescinding job offers and sidelining more than 150 national security and foreign policy officials.
The Republican president has made little secret of his disdain for the sprawling 2.2 million-strong federal workforce and in particular for diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which promote opportunities for women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ people and other traditionally underrepresented groups.
In a speech delivered via video on Thursday to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Trump said his orders ending DEI programs would make America a “merit-based country” once again.
“These are policies that were absolute nonsense, throughout the government and the private sector,” he said.
The Federal Reserve scrubbed a “Diversity and Inclusion” section from its website, with previous links to data on the racial, ethnic and gender makeup of its economists and researchers now defaulting to the homepage.
The CIA has dissolved its diversity and inclusion office along with all related programs, a spokesperson said in a statement.
Stephanie La Rue, a senior government official who oversaw diversity policies for all 18 U.S. intelligence agencies, likewise appeared to be sent home and references to her had been removed from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. A spokesperson for that office declined to comment.
The Department of Agriculture removed all information from its website on efforts to promote racial and gender diversity – including recommendations from its equity commission, formed during the Biden administration, on how the agency could improve its relationship with minority farmers, more fairly distribute farm loans and other efforts.
Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock asked Agriculture Secretary nominee Brooke Rollins at her confirmation hearing on Thursday if she would still consider the recommendations.
Rollins said she would consider “anything on the table” but added, “President Trump won on the concept of removing the diversity, equity and inclusion, making sure that we’re basing our decisions on merit, and I obviously support that 100% as well.”
The Department of Education said that it would no longer make diversity-related training materials and other documents available to the public and that it would shift to “prioritizing meaningful learning ahead of divisive ideology in our schools.”
The department does not play a direct role in education, which is largely the domain of local governments, but it is responsible for enforcing civil rights laws in U.S. schools.
Civil rights advocates say the DEI programs are needed to overcome inequality stemming from the United States’ history of racism, but Trump and his supporters say the efforts end up unfairly discriminating against other Americans.
Median Black household income was about 63% of white, non-Hispanic household income in 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, up from 53% in 1963, before major civil-rights laws took effect, suggesting limited economic advancement for Black households in 60 years.
BROADER CAMPAIGN TARGETING WORKFORCE
A memo distributed to thousands of federal workers across the government on Wednesday commanded employees to turn in co-workers who sought to “disguise” DEI efforts by using “coded language,” warning that a failure to report relevant information would trigger “adverse consequences.”
Officials overseeing DEI programs in numerous agencies and departments were put on leave on Wednesday, and their offices were set for permanent closure by month’s end.
The steps against diversity were part of Trump’s broader campaign targeting the federal bureaucracy, which he has sometimes disparaged as the “deep state” secretly working against his agenda.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday canceled a call with state veterinarians that would normally discuss H5N1 bird flu, sources said. It was one of several U.S. health agencies that canceled meetings, suspended some publications and told employees to freeze travel after directives from leadership.
About 160 staff members at the National Security Council, which draws from the State Department, the Pentagon and other parts of the U.S. government, were told during a brief call on Wednesday to turn in their devices and badges and head home, three former NSC officials told Reuters.
NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes said Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, had authorized a full staff review.
“It is entirely appropriate for Mr. Waltz to ensure NSC personnel are committed to implementing President Trump’s America,” Hughes said.
The news came as a surprise to the staffers, who had been expecting new assignments or perhaps a pep talk, according to one of the former officials who spoke with colleagues who were on the call.
‘GLEEFUL HATRED OF THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE’
Trump has frozen virtually all federal hiring and signed an executive order on his first day in office on Monday that would allow his administration to fire at will tens of thousands of career civil servants, who historically have enjoyed job protections that insulate them from political partisanship.
The order, known as Schedule F, would permit Trump to fill those positions with hand-picked loyalists. The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents about 150,000 workers in three dozen agencies, filed a lawsuit challenging the move.
“This gleeful hatred of the federal workforce will lead to nothing good,” Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who represents 140,000 federal workers in Virginia, told reporters.
The Department of Justice this week revoked an unspecified number of entry-level job offers to law students who had been accepted to its prestigious Honors Program, citing the federal hiring freeze.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Matt Spetalnick; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay, Jody Godoy, Bo Erickson, Leah Douglas, Humeyra Pamuk, Daniel Trotta, Bianca Flowers, Heather Timmons and David Ljunggren; Writing by Joseph Ax and Andy Sullivan; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)
