Trump Has Multiple Tools Available To Extract Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Spending From the Federal Budget

President-elect Trump and members of his incoming administration are vowing to eradicate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives from the federal government. They may have to start with undoing outgoing efforts by the Biden administration to hastily fill in its waning days federal DEI posts.Nearly three dozen diversity, equity, and inclusion jobs have been advertised by the Biden administration since the November 5 election. The hiring window ends before Trump takes office, the Daily Wire reports. Several of the jobs have salaries of up to $310,000. One job posted by the Department of Homeland Security is for a “writer-editer (sic).”Another job offer posted before the election sought a “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility specialist” at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, with a salary of more than $180,000.Since 2021, the Biden administration has expended enormous sums on DEI initiatives throughout the government, including measuring support for them within government ranks. A report from the government transparency advocacy organization Open The Books in November found the Department of Health and Human Services spent more than $68 million a year on DEI-related staff alone during the Biden years, with 247 DEI-dedicated employees earning more than $100,000 per year. A report from Parents Defending Education unearthed more than $1 billion on various diversity initiatives for educational programs since 2021. That’s just a sample of the billions of dollars that have been disclosed about DEI spending. Throughout the federal government, thanks to the direction of President Biden, federal agencies have weaved DEI into almost all their work.The two people tasked with running the Department of Government Efficiency advisory board, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, have railed against such initiatives. Mr. Musk called DEI “just another word for racism,” and Mr. Ramaswamy posted on X that an “efficient government has no place for DEI bloat.”The process of eliminating diversity programs may not be as easy as the stroke of Trump’s executive order pen, but that’s one place to start. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who has been a crusader against DEI, Christopher Rufo, suggested the 47th president work to rescind Executive Orders 13583, which was signed by President Obama, as well as orders 13985 and 14035, which were signed by President Biden and directed the federal government to promote DEI. The president, Mr. Rufo said, can replace them with an executive order “advancing the principle of colorblind equality, stating that the government shall treat all individuals equally according to their merit, rather than unequally according to their ancestry.”“My primary guidance for Trump’s Cabinet is swiftly to shut down all DEI programs and to terminate the employment of all policy officials responsible for those programs, effective immediately,” he added. “There is an enormous advantage to acting quickly and aggressively on the first day, when the public is most willing to grant the new administration discretion.”A senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Max Eden, suggested the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel issue a memorandum that states DEI violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Several private sector challenges to DEI initiatives have been upheld on constitutional grounds.“We’ve spent much time and capital degrading the brand of ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.’ Great and needed work. But that shouldn’t be the conversation anymore. DEI is unconstitutional. Full stop,” he wrote last week.While executive orders and memos could put a stop to some of the government’s focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion, the Trump administration would likely need to scrutinize the federal agencies’ spending individually to eliminate all such programs.A Government Accountability Office representative told CNN that information on diversity initiatives may not be easily accessible because “there are no requirements for agencies to specifically collect or report that information.” While some programs may specifically use the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” which would be easy to spot, others may not be so obvious.Multiple federal agencies have DEI offices that would be fairly easy to identify and work to eliminate. Some departments allocate money in their budgets for DEI. In the 2024 fiscal year, Health and Human Services sought $113 million for “training for diversity.” For the 2025 fiscal year, the State Department sought $75 million for DEI initiatives. Trump has also stated that he wants to eliminate DEI programs and initiatives at universities and colleges. Reuters reports that the Justice Department and other federal agencies are likely to launch investigations or file lawsuits against institutions with such programs that they believe violate anti-discrimination laws.While finding and eliminating various DEI initiatives at the federal level will likely be a major task, the Trump administration will also likely face opposition from supporters of diversity initiatives in and out of government. The ACLU is one of many organizations vowing to bring lawsuits to challenge efforts to roll back DEI programs. The civil liberties advocacy organization also says it will lobby Congress to block legislation aimed at eliminating diversity initiatives. At the same time, it says it will work with states to protect DEI initiatives at the local level.

Trump Has Multiple Tools Available To Extract Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Spending From the Federal Budget

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