Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office on Jan. 20. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

President Trump on Tuesday revoked a decades-old civil rights law that strengthened protections against workplace discrimination.

Why it matters: Trump’s desire to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the federal government’s employment practices could set the tone for private companies nationwide to do the same.

• Trump’s executive order targeting DEI practices undid a whole host of previous orders that sought to prohibit discrimination in the workplace. Among the landmark pieces of legislation were anti-discrimination rules enacted by President Lyndon Johnson in the Civil Rights era.

Signed by Johnson in 1965, Executive Order 11246, mandated government contractors to give equal opportunity to people of color and women in recruitment, hiring, training and other employment practices.

• It prohibited employment discrimination and called on federal contractors to take affirmative action to ensure employees are treated equally, “without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.”
• Johnson signed the act just a year after signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

What does Trump’s executive order say?

Trump’s expansive executive order states that “Executive Order 11246 of September 24, 1965 … is hereby revoked.”

• The executive order claims that both the private and public sectors “have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences,” and that these DEI practices “can violate the civil-rights laws of this Nation.”
• It noted that federal contractors could continue complying with the act for the next 90 days.

Caveat: Trump’s executive order targets the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), which enforces Executive Order 11246.

• It orders the OFCCP to “immediately cease” promoting diversity, holding federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for affirmative action practices, and “allowing or encouraging” those same entities “to engage in workforce balancing” on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, religion and nation of origin.

What’s been the response?

Trump’s executive order has already sparked outcry from civil rights leaders and advocacy groups.

• “Diversity, equity, and inclusion are aligned with American values,” National Urban League president Marc H. Morial told Axios. “They are about uniting us, not dividing us. Efforts to paint DEI as a preference program are nothing more than campaigns of smear and distortion.”
• Judy Conti, government affairs director of the National Employment Law Project, slammed Trump’s executive order in a statement Wednesday.
• “This is not a return to so-called ‘meritocracy.’ Rather, it’s an attempted return to the days when people of color, women, and other marginalized people lacked the tools to ensure that they were evaluated on their merits,” Conti said.

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