Rest In Peace Affirmative Action: Trump Just Killed It

This is outrageous, and you should be screaming about it!

Progress is being rolled back. | Photo by Guillaume Issaly on Unsplash

Among the most egregious executive orders that Donald Trump just signed, the revocation of Executive Order 11246 stands apart.

EO 11246 was the order that required Federal contractors to follow race and gender affirmative action guidelines.

With the stroke of a pen, the felon-in-chief just removed those protections and the guidelines that have helped protect against discrimination and ensure equality in hiring practices within the Federal government.

Further, he went ahead and instructed the hiring offices of the federal government to do the exact opposite.

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(ii) The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs within the Department of Labor shall immediately cease:
(A) Promoting “diversity”;
(B) Holding Federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for taking “affirmative action”; and
(C) Allowing or encouraging Federal contractors and subcontractors to engage in workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin.

ENDING ILLEGAL DISCRIMINATION AND
RESTORING MERIT-BASED OPPORTUNITY

At this time, he has ordered that all diversity workers within the federal government be placed on paid leave, effective immediately. This includes instructions that these employees will, in short order, be laid off.

At the same time, he has asked all employees to inform on one another to make it nice and easy for his administration to shut down all ‘DEI’ activity. He warns of ‘adverse consequences’ if employees refuse to comply with this expectation.

In the ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing’ EO, signed on January 20th, he describes President Biden’s attempts to improve diversity in the federal government’s workforce as ‘immoral’ and ‘illegal.’

DEI programs are referred to as an ‘infiltration of the Federal Government.’

Savvy readers of the above EO—the one about ‘radical and wasteful DEI programs’—will note that it uses the acronym ‘DEIA’ in the body of the order. The ‘A’ refers to accessibility. Disabled people are now explicitly on the chopping block as well.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who pays attention to Trump’s speeches, where he references the ‘bad genes’ of ‘criminals’ coming in over the border, and how immigrants ‘poison the blood of our country.’

This is straight-up eugenics rhetoric.

That order includes the following demand:

(b) Each agency, department, or commission head, in consultation with the Attorney General, the Director of OMB, and the Director of OPM, as appropriate, shall take the following actions within sixty days of this order:

(i) terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and “environmental justice” offices and positions (including but not limited to “Chief Diversity Officer” positions); all “equity action plans,” “equity” actions, initiatives, or programs, “equity-related” grants or contracts; and all DEI or DEIA performance requirements for employees, contractors, or grantees.

It goes on to require lists of all positions, offices, committees, services and budgets and investigate whether any have been re-named in an attempt to hide their existence.

It requires lists of all Federal contract workers who have complied with the previous administration’s DEI requirements, or who have provided DEI training to Federal employees.

The purge has officially begun.

Are you afraid yet? Do you understand what’s happening now?

Are you angry? Because you fucking should be. This is the overturning of decades of hard-fought victories for the civil rights of all Americans. This is racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism and homophobia at the highest levels of the United States Government.

This is what America has voted for. And this is what the American people are up against.

Solidarity wins.

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