By: David Cohen and Joanna Colosimo
On February 5, 2025, Charles Ezell, Acting Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), issued a memorandum to heads of Federal departments and agencies providing further guidance on ending Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) offices, programs, and initiatives.
This follows President Trump's Executive Orders aimed at eliminating what are deemed radical and wasteful illegal DEIA programs and restoring merit-based opportunities.
Interestingly, the OPM memo attempts to clarify the Executive actions and aligns with long-held non-discrimination practices and civil rights laws. It reiterates that the administration is committed to anti-discrimination within the federal government and reinforces the need for reasonable accommodations and accessibility, applicant and employee demographic data collection, and anti-discrimination efforts and analytics to assess potential discrimination within Federal agencies.
In this memo, Ezell instructs agency heads to eliminate DEIA office, policies, and practices that unlawfully discriminate based on protected characteristics such as race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, or pregnancy. This includes ending diversity requirements for hiring panels and candidate pools. However, the memo also specifies that statutory functions, such as having reasonable accommodation or discrimination complaint processes, are legally required, must be retained, and should be transferred to other personnel if they are currently included as a DEIA function.
Additionally, the memo directs agencies to prohibit Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that specifically advance preferential recruitment, hiring, or retention based on protected characteristics. However, agency heads may allow ERGs, affinity groups, mentorships, and social and culture events to continue if they are compliant with recent Executive Orders, are inclusive, and do not segregate based on a protected class.
DCI will continue to monitor the evolving legal landscape regarding DEIA programs and initiatives. To receive industry news, resources, and more directly to your inbox, sign up for our DCI Alerts.
