The Trump administration sent an email to thousands of government employees on Wednesday, ordering them to report any attempts to “hide” diversity programs at their agencies or face “serious consequences”.
The request came after President Donald Trump banned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and programs across the government.
Emails seen by the BBC instructed staff to “report all facts and circumstances” to a new government email address within 10 days.
Some staffers interpreted it as a need to sell their colleagues in the White House.
“We’re really saddened and overwhelmed,” said one Health and Human Services (HHS) official.
The Office of Personnel Management, which oversees federal employees, issued a directive requiring union heads to send notices to their employees by 5:00 p.m. eastern time on Wednesday. It included a template for the email many federal employees eventually received that evening.
Some employees, such as those in the Finance Department, received slightly different versions of the email.
The Treasury email did not include a warning about the “serious consequences” of not reporting DEI plans, according to a copy shared with the BBC.
In one of his first acts as president, Trump signed two executive orders managing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “DEI programs” in the federal government and announced that any employees working in those roles immediately placed on paid administrative leave.
Such programs are designed to increase minority participation in the workforce and educate employees about discrimination.
But critics of DEI, like Trump, say the practice itself is discriminatory because it takes into account race, gender, gender identity or other factors.
Trump and his allies attacked the practice regularly during the campaign.
In his speech on Thursday at the world economic conference in Davos, Switzerland, Trump announced that he is making America “a nation based on merit”.
DEI critics praised Trump’s decision.
“President Trump’s orders to rescind affirmative action and prohibit DEI programs are a major milestone in the advancement of American civil rights and an important step in building a color-blind society,” Yukong Mike Zhao, president of the Asian American Coalition for Education, said in a statement. statement.
The group supported a successful effort in the US Supreme Court to overturn US university admissions programs.
But current civil servants, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the email they received sounded more like an attempt to intimidate staff than to do the government justice.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Trump has signed a number of executive orders since taking office, including a freeze on the federal government, a return-to-office order and an effort to reassign thousands of federal workers to ease layoffs.
An HHS employee who spoke to the BBC criticized the government’s DEI practices, believing that while it is important to create a diverse workforce and create opportunities in the health and medical fields, “identity politics has played into the way we work in general and that does not benefit workers”.
“But that does not mean that I want my colleagues to be fired,” added the worker.
He described the impact the DEI email and orders had on his institution as “a very calculated chaos”.
The staff has been confused, he said, with questions about hiring practices going forward, and what programs and directives are allowed to continue, given Trump’s broad definition of DEI.
A second HHS official said hiring and research grants have been suspended and all department staff are waiting to see what they can do next.
HHS, along with one of its subsidiary agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), doles out millions of dollars in federal grants to universities and researchers around the world to advance scientific research.
Agency officials fear that the DEI’s order may have ramifications outside the government as well. Another asked if the grants that allow laboratories to create more opportunities to hire fewer scientists and medical professionals will now get the axe.
An employee at the Food and Drug Administration told the BBC that he had not received the email, but that all work related to the DEI had been suspended.
“We were told by the elders to continue doing our work,” he said. “But there is a fear of how it will affect our overall work.”
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