The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a memo ordering all federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) employees to be placed on paid leave by 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday as the offices and programs start to close down.
In a post on X, Ed O’Keefe, a senior White House and political correspondent with CBS News, revealed that the U.S. OPM had issued a memo addressed to the heads and acting heads of departments and agencies within the government that each agency and department head should “take prompt actions regarding the offices and agency sub-units focusing exclusively on DEIA initiatives and programs.”
Agency heads were directed to “send an agency-wide notice to employees informing them of the closure and asking employees if they know of any efforts to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language” and to “send a notification to all employees of DEIA offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to lose/end all DEIA initiatives.”
The agency heads were also directed to “take down all outward facing media” such as websites and social media accounts.
Agency heads are also directed to “withdraw any final or pending documents, directives, orders, materials, and equity plans issued by the agency,” and to “cancel any DEIA-related trainings, and terminate any DEIA-related contractors.”
Agency heads were directed to make these steps “no later than 5:00 p.m. EST on Wednesday, January 22, 2025,” according to the memo.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt “gladly” confirmed the memo obtained by CBS News.
“To every reporter asking about this: I can gladly confirm,” Leavitt wrote in a post on X.
Agency heads were also given until “no later than” noon on Thursday, January 23, 2025, to “report to OPM on all steps” they had taken to implement the memo, along with providing the OPM a “complete list of DEIA offices and any employees” who were in those offices “as of November 5, 2024,” and to provide the OPM with a “complete list of all DEIA-related agency contracts as of November 5, 2024.”
Prior to being inaugurated, during a rally a Capitol One Arena on Sunday, President Donald Trump vowed to end former President Joe Biden’s “diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates,” adding that they would “return our country to the merit system.”
On Monday, Trump issued an executive order ending the “radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing.”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.