Instead, most all were involved in some sort of DEI initiative in the past, such as diversity training, an affinity group, or other programs inside the department aimed at creating a more inclusive workplace.
The purging underway suggests that the agency is not just seeking to eliminate DEI but also to remove people who have expressed interest or participated in programs related to it.
The effort is not limited to the Education Department. In Trump’s first two weeks in office, the drive to rid the federal government of anything associated with diversity or equity has ricocheted throughout federal agencies. Of the changes to federal agency websites the Trump administration has made in its first days, removing DEI language was the most common alteration, a Washington Post analysis of webpages within 14 cabinet-level agencies has found.
Late Friday, newly confirmed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the agency to stop commemorating cultural celebrations such as Black History Month. The message to staff was headlined: “Identity Months Dead at DoD.”
On Thursday, the FBI directed janitorial staff at Quantico to paint over a multicolored mural that once featured the words “FAIRNESS,” “LEADERSHIP,” “INTEGRITY,” “COMPASSION” and “DIVERSITY.”
Some government agency websites with information about equal employment opportunity — which allows employees to make complaints about workplace discrimination — were taken down for days before being restored. The one for NASA remained down as of midday Saturday. A NASA spokeswoman pointed to the DEI executive order as the reason.
Some employment experts worry such moves will hamper enforcement of civil rights laws that protect people from discrimination and provide equal access to the law. “I’m very concerned that the administration’s attack on DEI [will] handicap the EEO process itself,” Larry Stein, a federal employment attorney.
At the Energy Department, more than a dozen employees in one of the agency’s regional “culture” offices were put on administrative leave, but only three of them held DEI roles, according to three Energy Department staffers and personnel logs obtained by The Post.
And at the Office of Personnel Management, several employees who had previously taken part in DEI initiatives but who were not doing DEI work when Trump’s executive order was issued were also put on leave, according to a person familiar with the workings at OPM, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect the identities of those dismissed.
The person believed that the employees were targeted because of their prior work — such as being part of a fellowship program that rotates participants through various parts of the agency including the DEI office.
An Education Department spokeswoman declined to comment. The Energy Department, the Office of Personnel Management and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.
Sheria Smith, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents 2,825 Education Department employees, said the union is aware of only two of the 50 people they know were affected who are in jobs tied to diversity. They worked on presidential initiatives in the Biden administration that Trump rescinded in his anti-DEI executive order. Smith and others at the department believe that the total number of employees put on leave so far is more than 100.
Smith speculates that the goal is to shrink her agency in any way possible, given Trump has said he wants to abolish the Education Department altogether.
“I think the American people should be worried,” Smith said. “They’re trying to eliminate the Education Department and they know … it would be difficult to get the American public and Congress to sign off. So instead of eliminating it on their own, I believe they are trying to make it uncomfortable for employees to continue to work here in the hopes that those employees will eliminate themselves.”
‘Are you a diversity change agent?’
Although a few employees whose jobs were directly tied to DEI received notes in the opening days of the administration, a crush of notices began arriving around Thursday morning, according to union officials and affected employees. The emails informed workers that they had been put on administrative leave.
Employees were told that their pay and benefits would continue but that they were not to work and that their email access was suspended “pursuant to the President’s executive order on DEIA and further guidance from OPM.”
No other rationale was given. DEIA stands for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility — a term that has become a pejorative for any program or policy that seeks to provide equal access for people color, women and other underrepresented groups.
When Donna Bussell got the notice, she was confused. Her job is to help administer grants to support Native American students as part of the Office of Indian Education within the Education Department. It has nothing to do with DEIA, she said.
Then she thought back. Last year, she was asked to serve on an agency Diversity and Inclusion Council, though she said she barely participated because her actual job kept her busy. Before Trump was elected, she was president of an affinity group for Native American and Alaskan workers at the agency. It had met exactly once over lunch and, as soon as she saw the executive order, Bussell shut the group down and deleted its meeting notices and records online.
Bussell, a citizen of the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, does not know if it was one of these factors — or that she works with Native American programs — that got her targeted.
“The people who are going after DEI have no idea that Indian education is not DEI,” she said.
At first she was upset. Now she’s angry. “The people who know me at the department and know my work ethic all value me,” Bussell said.
The move prompted several of her supporters around the country to write letters of protest to the Education Department. Several accused the agency of mistakenly conflating Indian education with DEI.
Another Education Department employee placed on leave has a job giving school districts guidance on educational issues, said the staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. That work has nothing to do with DEI, the staffer said.
This person recalled volunteering to serve as part of a “diversity change agents” group, which promoted an inclusive workplace.
Still another person at the agency who was put on leave said she was informed Friday night by her supervisor, who assured her the move was not related to her work performance.
“Did you do anything related to DEI?” he asked. “Are you a diversity change agent?”
The employee had been part of the diversity change agent program, and both she and her supervisor wonder if that was the reason for being put on leave.
Of the 50 employees the local union knows have been placed on leave, the majority were part of the diversity change agents program, said Smith, the local’s president.
“That was something that was offered to all employees, a volunteer training for people who were interested,” she said. “Most of those people never did anything beyond attending the training.”
The language of Trump’s DEI order — signed on his first day as president — was aggressive in scope. But the order does not call for eliminating employees who had merely participated in DEI programs, though Trump has spoken expansively about his disdain for anything related to diversity and equity.
A similar dynamic appeared to be at work at the Energy Department, where more than a dozen people on one team were put on leave, but only three held roles titled “diversity and inclusion specialist,” according to personnel logs reviewed by The Post.
One employee was tasked with analyzing the results of quarterly federal well-being surveys. Another focused on employee engagement and retention. Others were charged with outreach to Indigenous tribes to help maintain federal treaties on water and dam use. One person worked on veterans’ initiatives.
“None of those folks in culture do anything with DEI,” said the local union chief, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. “Most of those people have 20-plus years of service with the government and now they’re on admin. leave. For no reason.”
Nixing holidays, affinity groups, websites
The DEI movement had grown in popularity after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. DEI efforts proliferated in corporate America, the nonprofit world, schools and politics, as well as inside the Biden administration. A backlash followed, which Trump seized to further his political agenda.
DEI “would have ruined our country, and now it’s dead,” Trump said in comments to reporters in the Oval Office on Friday.
In recent days, agencies including the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency canceled employee “affinity groups,” gatherings of people of a certain identity for bonding and support. That included a “Military Veterans Resource Group” at the Energy Department, according to a copy of the email reviewed by The Post.
On Thursday, the Defense Intelligence Agency paused all workforce celebrations of holidays including Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Pride Month, Juneteenth and National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
Some federal employees who remain say the efforts have cast a pall over the workplace.
An Energy Department staffer wonders if he’ll be put on leave for attending a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration shortly before Trump’s inauguration. His colleagues, he said, are guarded in how they talk to one another, worried their words might be interpreted as touching on diversity, equity or inclusion. Gone are mentions of spouses, children, pets.
“Talking to people now,” he said, “the human aspect is not there.”
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