Among President Donald Trump's barrage of executive orders have been actions attempting to take down diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in the federal government and schools across the country. Those moves threaten long-held civil rights protections and enforcement mechanisms, sparking concern over how far back Trump could take the country to deliver his "Golden Age."
Trump's assault on diversity includes a week-one repeal of prior executive orders in support of the Equal Employment Opportunity Act; freezing the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, with directives to halt most of its investigations from the Biden administration; and an order for K-12 institutions that restricts teaching on racism and gender identity in favor of a "patriotic education."
The moves have prompted concerns about the potential for bedrock, federal civil rights laws to one day be repealed altogether. But, as alarming as the orders are for millions of Americans, civil rights and racial justice advocates say that stoking fear and overwhelming Trump's critics is the intent — and staunchly defending the principles these orders threaten is the only way forward.
"It's obvious that the Trump administration is attempting to weaponize and co-opt long-standing civil rights laws to dismantle legal efforts at remedying discrimination and ensuring equal opportunities so that everyone has a shot," Amanda Meyer, a senior staff attorney in the ACLU's Racial Justice Program, told Salon.
"Broadly, the administration is using the EOs to bully and intimidate entities across a wide variety of sectors to abandon legal DEI efforts and necessary practices by ordering agencies to go on the attack," Meyer added, noting that the orders intentionally leave DEI "undefined and incredibly confusing."
Signed Jan. 29, Trump's most recent anti-DEI executive order sets out to end what the president described as "radical indoctrination in K-12 schooling" and restoring "patriotic education." It strips funding from schools that teach "discriminatory equity ideology," which includes the idea that "the United States is fundamentally racist, sexist or otherwise discriminatory." The order also instructs agencies to develop a strategy to eliminate classroom instruction on gender identity, referred to as "gender ideology," as well as "unconscious bias" and "white privilege," arguing that the concepts erode critical thinking and undermine "national unity."
Teaching these "false ideologies" both violates civil rights law and "usurps basic parental authority" over their children's education, the order asserts.
That presidential action came on the heels of orders and directives limiting enforcement of civil rights throughout the federal government — and applying pressure on the private sector to do the same.
Last week, the head of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division was instructed to pause all investigations and refrain from pursuing new indictments, cases or settlements, per The Washington Post. A separate memo required the division's supervisor to notify the department's chief of staff of any consent decree finalized within the last 90 days, suggesting that police-reform agreements between the DOJ and cities will be at risk under the new administration, the Post reports.
Trump also signed a sprawling executive order rolling back a slew of actions from previous presidencies to end what he called "illegal discrimination" and restore "merit-based opportunity," among them the Equal Employment Opportunity rule. The order, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, prohibited discrimination in federal hiring and required federal contractors to act affirmatively in doing so.
The president has also encouraged the private sector to ditch diversity efforts, prompting a number of companies to announce they were eliminating their DEI policies.
Jocelyn Frye, the president of the National Partnership for Women and Families, told Salon that these moves from Trump were "expected" and follow the roadmap for rescinding DEI policies outlined in Project 2025.
"What we've known for a long time is that that roadmap would do great harm to women's progress and great harm to the progress that our nation has achieved across a wide range of civil rights," she said in a video call.
But experts say Trump's order don't themselves threaten the laws enacted to uphold civil rights protections; the president simply doesn't have the authority to unilaterally repeal any law enacted by Congress with an executive order. Legislation like the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act remain the law of the land, and discrimination in hiring is still illegal.
"Companies and higher-ed institutions, entities, schools, they all have an obligation to comply with federal and state civil rights laws that require them to provide these opportunities on an equal basis, and the Trump administration doesn't have the power to change that by fiat," Meyer said, emphasizing that the administration "can't co-opt these civil rights laws with a stroke of a pen."
Still, Trump's actions do weaken the efforts to prevent discrimination and provide marginalized Americans with real and tangible opportunity, Frye said. By making the enforcement mechanisms of these laws "largely ineffectual" — such as stripping the system of accountability for federal contractors, as mandated in President Johnson's now-rescinded rule — Trump is indeed making it harder to accomplish the intent of the Civil Rights Act and other 1960s-era reforms.
"When you eliminate the infrastructure, you then do serious damage to whether or not people will be able to enjoy opportunities that are meaningful," Frye said.
Such moves also have widespread impact. For one, experts say, the orders — even if they are unconstitutional — encourage other political actors to act in kind. The attack on diversity in workplaces, schools and businesses also sends a message to marginalized groups that they're unwelcome or can't pursue certain career or educational opportunities. And the anticipated lack of serious enforcement of civil rights laws from the Trump administration will of course be felt by Americans who encounter discrimination in the workplace.
"That message also gets sent down to employers who then pay less attention to whether they're doing something right or not," Frye said. Without the pressure of enforcement, companies are less likely to promote diversity or seek to root out discrimination.
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Meyer also sees these executive orders as chilling a wide range of speech around race and gender that are essential to instruction and learning in the classroom, like understanding basic history, fostering critical thinking and "making sure that students' own experiences are centered at school."
Ultimately, these efforts to uproot diversity, equity and inclusion policies, as well as civil rights enforcement measures , will hurt every American, argued Karla Bruce, chief of staff at Race Forward, a racial justice organization. She described the Trump administration's efforts as a "seismic shift" from previous approaches.
"We've gotten used to, in many ways, an America that values these principles. What does it look like in an America that doesn't?" Bruce said in a phone interview. "There is a shift because of what the administration is doing, but I don't think we're in an America that doesn't value these principles."
The experts who spoke to Salon characterize Trump's executive orders as part of a broader effort by the administration to "shock and awe" liberal America, leaving its critics feeling overwhelmed and helpless. But, when the dust settles, there is likely to be a loud response.
Bruce said she anticipates a resistance movement affirming the nation's belief in and commitment to diversity to arise as the reality of Trump's presidency hits home. She said she already sees it emerging as people begin to recognize what's driving the administration.
"We've learned that from the Civil Rights Movement, right?" Bruce said. "We've been here in some way before. There's been doom and gloom in this country's history and what always moved us forward is that our ancestors fought back and they organized. It's important that we take the lesson of our ancestors and, frankly, not take this sitting down."
"One day we will be ancestors, and we will want people to look back and see that we fought for our democracy and won," she said.
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