US Government Workers In Federal DEI Offices To Be Put On Paid Leave: White House

(MENAFN- Live Mint) US federal employees working in diversity offices must be put on paid leave by Wednesday evening as the new administration of Donald Trump has ordered the programs shut, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on X.

Donald Trump News LIVE What did the order on DEI office staffers state?

The Office of Personnel Management in a Tuesday memo as shared by Leavitt directed agencies to place DEI office staffers on paid leave by 5 p.m on Wednesday.

It also directed to take down all public DEI-focused webpages by the same deadline. It was seen that several federal departments had removed the webpages even before the memorandum.

According to the memo, it was directed that,“No later than 5:00 pm EST on Friday, January 31, 2025, submit to OPM: a written plan for executing a reduction-in-force action regarding the employees who work in a DEIA office. Agencies should cordinate with OPM in preparing these plans.”

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In addition to this , it also directed the agency heads to submit the OPM a list of all contract descriptions or personnel position descriptions that were changed since November 5, 2024 to obscure their connection to DEIA programs.

The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government's diversity and inclusion programs that could touch on everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners. Trump has called the programs“discrimination” and insisted on restoring strictly“merit-based” hiring.

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The move came after Monday's executive order accused former President Joe Biden of forcing“discrimination” programs into“virtually all aspects of the federal government” through“diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, known as DEI.

Executive order and directives by President Trump

President Donald Trump issued a flurry of executive orders and directives as he sought to put his stamp on his new US administration soon after taking oath of office on Monday, January 20. The orders signed on Day 1 covers issues ranging from energy to criminal pardons and immigration.

President Trump signed orders declaring illegal immigration at the US-Mexico border a national emergency, designating criminal cartels as terrorist organisations, and targeting automatic birthright citizenship for US.-born children of immigrants in the country illegally. In addition to this, President Trump also fulfilled his campaign promise to pull the US out of the World Health Organization (WHO) and also signed a withdrawal from the Paris climate treaty.

(With inputs from agencies)

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