Donald Trump takes aim at diversity initiatives, bedrock civil rights: 5 takeaways

President Donald Trump has never been shy about his disdain for diversity programs that his conservative supporters have long said act as racial discrimination towards white Americans.

In his first week back at the White House, the president signed a flurry of executive orders that shuttered diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, offices in all executive branch agencies.

"We will have a government based on merit, not race," Charlie Kirk, a conservative political activist, who is white, said in a Jan. 21 post on X, formerly known as Twitter, reacting to the executive order.

But Trump, who credited increased support from Black and Hispanic voters for his win last fall during his inauguration address, didn't stop there.

He also rolled back a decades-old federal labor policy originally signed by former President Lyndon Johnson at the height of the Civil Rights Movement that took steps toward ending discriminatory hiring practices and creating equal employment opportunities.

"This is massive," Kirk continued, noting it was something previous Republican presidents could have done but "never dared" do. "Now it’s gone," he added. "America is rising."

These aggressive moves could represent a major sea change that civil rights leaders warn will turn back the clock on race relations, and that progressives had warned about during the campaign despite Trump's overtures to improve minority voter's economic lives.

Here are five takeaways from this week's orders and what it means going forward.

R.I.P to DEI? Trump eliminates programs, seeks further crackdown

With the stroke of his pen, Trump, in an executive order, ordered all employees of offices "focusing exclusively on DEIA initiatives and programs" to go on paid administrative leave starting Wednesday. They will be permanently fired by Jan. 31, according to a memorandum authored by Charles Ezell, the Office of Personnel Management’s acting director.

The memo goes further, however, asking workers to report any effort to "disguise" diversity programs "by using coded or imprecise language," and that those who don't report such practices will face "adverse consequences" as well.

Trump signed a similar executive order telling the Federal Aviation Administration to stop its use of DEI in hiring practices, saying the agency "betrayed its mission by elevating dangerous discrimination over excellence."

But Trump wants to expand this beyond just the federal government. He also ordered agencies to provide a list of companies to investigate their DEI policies, which could have a chilling effect on the private sector.

That task will likely fall to Harmeet Dhillon, who Trump has appointed to lead the Justice Department’s civil rights division. Dhillon is well-known in conservative circles for her record of taking corporations to court over their diversity hiring policies.

Trump touts increased Black support

Part of Trump's confidence in picking apart DEI programs underscores how he feels buoyed on this subject by a more racially diverse coalition that put him back in office.

"To the Black and Hispanic communities. I want to thank you for the tremendous outpouring of love and trust that you have shown me with your vote. We set records, and I will not forget it," Trump said during his Jan. 20 inaugural address.

While former Vice President Kamala Harris got the lion's share of Black support, Trump made inroads that cannot be ignored in the context of eliminating programs designed to level the racial playing field. He doubled his overall margin with those voters, according to the AP VoteCast, raking in about 16% last November compared to 8% in 2020, including 25% of Black men.

A new Economist/YouGov poll released this week found that 45% of Americans, including 27% of Black Americans, support ending DEI programs in schools and government. The same survey found 57% of Black Americans oppose Trump's policies on this front.

Bedrock civil rights

In addition to the axe taken to federal DEI programs, which have been a recent political issue, Trump revoked landmark 1965 executive order originally signed by Lyndon Johnson.

The policy, known as Executive Order 11246, had directed federal contractors to take "affirmative action" to stop discrimination at their firms, and was ushered in at the height of the Civil Rights Movement as a pledge to create racial equality.

It holds federal contractors to a higher standard than other employers in ensuring that women and people of color have equal opportunities in hiring, training and promotions.

Historians have noted that segregationists originally opposed the LBJ-era order and that it was derided as a "quota system" by conservative critics in the decades after. The Reagan administration, for instance, tried to ditch the order but was scared off by congressional and business leaders at the time.

"This is massive," said Kirk, the conservative activist. "Reagan, HW Bush, and Bush never dared to touch it. Now it’s gone. America is rising."

Trump makes changes on police accountability

Beyond bedrock civil rights rules and recent DEI programs, the Trump administration is also taking a sharp step away from Biden-era police accountability efforts by freezing litigation and reconsidering agreements negotiated to overhaul local police departments.

That would impact settlements in cities where high-profiled fatal incidents ?the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis; the killing of Breonna Taylor in Louisville and the beating death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis ?involving law enforcement sparked national protests.

Attorneys in the Justice Department's civil rights division have been ordered not to file any new complaints or other court papers “until further notice,” according to one of the memos.

Local leaders in Minneapolis and Louisville have indicated they will follow through with the federally mandated reforms, which have yet to be signed off by a judge.

"I've made it clear these reforms will happen with or without support from the White House," Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said in a Jan. 23 post on X.

"It’s unfortunate Trump may not be interested in cooperating with us to improve policing, but we have the tools, the resolve, & the community’s backing to fulfill our promise to Minneapolis."

Trump critics, civil rights leaders respond

Much of what Trump and his returning administration are doing on culture issues and race relations doesn't surprise Democrats and civil rights leaders, who warned during the campaign to be wary of his true policy goals in terms of U.S. race relations.

Democrat Ashanti Martinez, a Maryland state lawmaker, said in a statement that actions to "diminish diversity" will ultimately hurt the country's social fabric and economy.

"We must reject attempts to attack DEI and instead champion policies that expand access to the American Dream for every community," she said. "This is not just a moral imperative—it’s essential to the health of our economy and communities. You shouldn’t have to be a Billionaire to achieve your dreams in this country."

Trump's actions come more than a year after the Supreme Court overturned race-based affirmative action at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which launched a legal battle to end those programs in higher education and major corporations.

While conservative activists praise these efforts as a return to meritocracy, left-leaning activists believe these actions represent a renewed effort to land a death blow to racial progress stemming from the 1960s that, at the moment, is being met with compliance.

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, and other civil rights leaders are calling for a “massive resistance movement,’’ including meeting with corporate leaders, urging people to write to congressional lawmakers and taking legal action.

“We are not going back,’’ Morial said. “We owe it to our ancestors. We owe it to our children.”

Contributing: Reuters, Jessica Guynn

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump takes down DEI, historic civil rights law: 5 takeaways