Trump Cancels 60-Year-Old Affirmative Action Employment Mandate for Federal Contractors

Proponents of affirmative action hold signs during a protest at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., on July 1, 2023. Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images

President Donald Trump has repealed a legal landmark from the earliest days of the federal government that obliged federal contractors to establish “affirmative action” programs aimed at increasing workplace diversity.

Trump’s Jan. 21 order titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” is focused primarily on ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government and among its contractors.

By equating DEI initiatives with earlier efforts known as “Affirmative Action,” the order also cancels Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on Sept. 24, 1965, as the first major policy implementation stemming from the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Johnson’s order created the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) within the Department of Labor. The office was tasked with ensuring that federal contractors systematically eliminated all traces of race-based employment discrimination.

The 1965 action prompted an explosion of affirmative action programs in private-sector hiring and in college admissions. A 1978 Supreme Court decision, Regents of University of California v. Bakke, upheld the constitutionality of voluntary Affirmative Action programs but barred the use of race-based numerical quotas.

However, two subsequent Supreme Court decisions effectively legalized the use of racial factors in public and private hiring decisions. The 1986 decision in Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC allowed federal courts to mandate race-based hiring by craft unions, while the following year’s decision in Johnson v. Transportation Agency added sex to race as permissible grounds for hiring.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1965. Keystone/Getty Images

Trump’s signature on Wednesday on the new order repeals the 60-year-old mandate with provisions to streamline the federal contracting process and to reiterate that contractors must hire on the basis of merit, not race, sex, or other characteristics.

The order directs the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to immediately halt any programs, regulations, or directives that put factors such as “diversity,” “affirmative action,” or workforce “balancing.”

Elsewhere in the order, Trump declared, “I further order all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.”

Trump has also ordered all federal offices devoted to DEI activities to place their employees on paid administrative leave and to physically close their facilities by the close of business on Jan. 22, 2025.

The new order also repealed a 1994 order mandating federal actions to “Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations,” a 2011 mandate for a “Coordinated Government-wide Initiative to Promote Diversity and Inclusion in the Federal Workforce,” and a 2016 presidential memorandum for “Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the National Security Workforce.”

Rev. Al Sharpton during the last day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago on Aug. 22, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Reaction against Trump’s order was immediate, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, which released Sharpton’s statement declaring a boycott of private businesses that comply with the executive order.

“Donald Trump can cut federal DEI programs to the bone, he can claw back federal money to expand diversity, but he cannot tell us what grocery store we shop at,” Sharpton said in the statement.

“Companies that think they can renege on their promises to do better, bring in new voices, or abandon us will see the impact of Black buying power. That’s why in the next 90 days we will begin to send a message that we will not go back, and we will bring this issue to the topline by going after their bottom line.”

Similarly, the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.), said in a statement that the new order “is nothing short of an attempt to take our country backward and does nothing to help our communities grow economically or address the costs of living for hardworking American families.”

Supporters, meanwhile, said the new order will ensure fairness by focusing on merits and save money for schools and businesses.

On Capitol Hill, House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) described affirmative action and DEI programs as “antithetical to American exceptionalism.”

“From the classroom to the board room, Americans have felt the negative effects,” he said. “DEI has bloated education budgets while telling students what to think instead of how to think.”

GianCarlo Canaparo, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Judicial and Legal Studies, told The Epoch Times that the 1965 order was especially damaging because it “applied not only to defense contractors, but to universities, technology companies, and vast swathes of the private sector.”

Canaparo said the repealed order “thereby supercharged race consciousness and racial grievance and did immense damage to the goal of colorblind meritocracy.”

“Even after all these years, Biden officials still cited it as one of the key authorities giving them the power to impose racial preferences,” Canaparo said.