WASHINGTON, DC — President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on January 20, 2025 as Civil rights leaders and elected officials are seething after President Donald Trump signed a series of executive orders to eliminate DEI federal programs and decades-old enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Advocates and legal experts say one order, which revokes the enforcement of equal employment opportunity laws, also known as Title VII under the Civil Rights Act, will have a chilling effect.
“We got a lot of people who are going to lose their jobs,” said Dr. Mary Frances Berry, a former chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, appointed by President Bill Clinton, and professor emerita at the University of Pennsylvania.
On Tuesday, President Trump signed an order revoking decades-old executive orders signed by Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon that established enforcement of anti-bias measures in federal employment and contracting related to race, sex, religion, and national origin under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Trump order also revokes orders signed by President Barack Obama enforcing diversity promotion in the national security workforce and the overall federal workforce. Trump also directed all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion staff to be put on paid leave by the end of the day and eventually laid off.
Dr. Mary Frances Berry points out that the need for anti-bias and diversity mechanisms for employment in the federal workforce has always existed, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, because workers who were not white were simply overlooked. “It was the culture,” she further said “Taxpayers pay for contracts, and everybody has the right — any kind of taxpayer — to see to it that they … get a fair look.”
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was established by Congress to enforce the anti-bias employment measures of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. For years, the agency has been tasked with investigating and prosecuting cases of workplace discrimination. It also requires employers to report data on their employees, including their race or ethnicity.
