Trump Prioritizes Bigotry To Grocery Prices In His First Days.
Trump Repeals Equal Employment Opportunity, Something That Has Long Prevented Racial Discrimination In The Workforce.
Donald Trump took little time to amass more executive orders signed in his first day than any other president before him.
Meaning, it could be easy for any number of them to slip by without being read by the general public or covered properly in mainstream media.
For this reason we will spend the next 7 days covering one Trump executive order per day that we consider detrimental.
Starting with his choice to repeal Executive Order 11246: Equal Employment Opportunity.
What Is Equal Employment Opportunity?
Donald Trump and the anti-civil rights wing of his base are quick to paint this and other measures of Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion (DEI) as racism against whites. The problem with this is how it doesn’t seem to match the reality of what’s laid out in the actual policies.
Equal Employment Opportunity, which is what we will be saying when referring to Executive Order 11246, gives power to the head of the Department of Labor to ensure equal opportunity to all races, sexes, or religious backgrounds when applying for federal employment.
Which is laid out pretty clearly in the executive order, like in Section 202 regarding federal contractors. Which reads:
The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. Such action shall include, but not be limited to the following: employment, upgrading, demotion, or transfer; recruitment or recruitment advertising; layoff or termination; rates of pay or other forms of compensation; and selection for training, including apprenticeship. The contractor agrees to post in conspicuous places, available to employees and applicants for employment, notices to be provided by the contracting officer setting forth the provisions of this nondiscrimination clause.
The contractor will, in all solicitations or advancements for employees placed by or on behalf of the contractor, state that all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.
The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because such employee or applicant has inquired about, discussed, or disclosed the compensation of the employee or applicant or another employee or applicant. This provision shall not apply to instances in which an employee who has access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of such employee’s essential job functions discloses the compensation of such other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to such information, unless such disclosure is in response to a formal complaint or charge, in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or is consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information.
Pretty clearly in this section it is laid out candidates both have to be qualified, and that race needs to not be a factor in the consideration for hiring employees. It specifically states you can’t discriminate based on race.
This has been crucial in protections of African-Americans in the workforce, of whom are still underrepresented despite practices like DEI. We know this discrimination still exists today, recent studies have found white applicants are still 9% more likely on average to receive a call back than black applicants with the exact same qualifications.
The other crucial part of Equal Employment Opportunity was it preventing federal employers and contractors from discriminating against the employees they already have. As around 1-in-4 African-Americans report experiencing discrimination in the past year of being in the workforce.
All in all, Equal Employment Opportunity isn’t a measure that demands quotas or special considerations to minority groups. If anything, it specifically states there shouldn’t be special considerations to any racial group.
What Does Trump’s Order Do?
It very simply repeals the aforementioned executive order pertaining to Equal Employment Opportunity. Meaning employers now have no regulation by the government preventing them from discriminating based on race, sex, or religion.
Notably, the executive order keeps these same protections for veterans and the disabled. Showing that Trump is only taking issue as it pertains to more culturally-based issues.
His executive order even goes a step further than just federal employment, including measures like:
Ordering federal agencies to compile lists of public companies, universities and large foundations for investigations and possible civil action over their DEI programs.
Ordering the heads of all agencies, with the assistance of the Attorney General, to take action in their agencies to expand this initiative into the private sector.
Ordering each agency to identify up to nine potential investigations of publicly traded corporations, for profit or non-profit with more than 500 million in assets.
Also pertains to State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars
So his plan isn’t just to roll back these anti-discrimination measures on the federal level, but to expand it into all sectors of the workforce. Going as far to look into possible litigation against private companies who indulge in DEI practices.
In Section 5 of the Trump executive order it also covers the policy his administration will enact for education regarding these practices, as it reads:
Sec. 5. Other Actions. Within 120 days of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall jointly issue guidance to all State and local educational agencies that receive Federal funds, as well as all institutions of higher education that receive Federal grants or participate in the Federal student loan assistance program under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1070 et seq., regarding the measures and practices required to comply with Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).
Essentially, this serves as a threat to any institution of education that receives federal funding to go along with the policies they are enacting. As if they don’t, their access to the federal funds could quickly dry up.
With Equal Employment Opportunity being the big one catching the most attention, I wanted to be sure to cover the other major executive order this repeals, as it expands even outside of the workforce.
In this action, Trump also repealed Executive Order 12898 which prevents federal actions with negative environmental affects that disproportionately effect black people.
Something that has long been an issue from lead poisoning disproportionately effecting the community, to race still being the biggest predictor of a person living near contaminated air, water, or soil.
Trump has justified most of these attacks on “DEI” as some sort of act of true civil-rights, fighting the anti-white discrimination. The problem with this is minimal research into what he’s attacking shows it has no merit.
In none of these orders he overturned are quota’s mentioned, or special treatment of people of color. They essentially say the government just can’t consider them any less than they would a white person, and even that is too far for Trump and MAGA.
Keep up the great work 😊