On Wednesday, President Donald Trump revoked a six-decade-old executive order designed to combat workplace discrimination by federal contractors, undoing a landmark labor standard that stretches back to the presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson.
The rule Trump nuked, Executive Order 11246, forbade federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. It granted the Labor Department the power to enforce its provisions through a contracting standards office.
The order was part of a long history of the federal government using contracting rules to improve workplace standards across the country. Signed a year after the Civil Rights Act was passed, it explicitly required that employers who accept federal contract money take “affirmative action” not to discriminate against job applicants or workers.
But in a statement Wednesday, Trump attacked it as “radical DEI,” short for diversity, equity and inclusion. DEI programs, which aim to improve workplace conditions and reduce hiring disparities for underrepresented minorities, have grown into a conservative obsession and major policy target for Trump and his allies, who often say DEI enables “reverse” discrimination instead.
TVNL Comment: Trump supporters are getting what they asked for: a painful ride back to the future. What a disgrace before the rest of the world.
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