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Yes, DEI and diversity are different, and banning one does NOT mean that we should abandon the other. And I say this no matter who the president is, or what he (or she) may order. We are a nation of laws, after all, and that means something to me.
In that regard, one of the first things that President Trump did upon taking office was to dismantle the federal government’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices—his White House has even gone so far as to require that their staffs be identified and placed on administrative leave—and that’s drawn all sorts of gasps from those who fret over such things. I’ll admit to doing so as well.
But after thinking about it, I had to ask, “What’s really going on here?” Does Trump’s executive order really outlaw efforts at achieving federal workplace diversity? And the answer, at least in my view, is a resounding “no!” It’s one thing to dismantle one of the previous administration’s signature initiatives, quite another to abandon the ideal of a U.S. civil service that looks like America, and while I won’t comment on the first, I have and will always support the second.
Whatever one says about Trump—and there is certainly much to say about him—he has issued a series of executive orders and presidential memos that, taken together, focus on creating a truly merit-based America. To be sure, they’ve been accompanied by a lot of noise, noise that has probably muddied an otherwise lofty and legitimate purpose. But as a career civil servant who has always put the principle of merit first, last, and always, that is something that I have strived for throughout my professional career.
But that’s different from DEI. To belabor the point, establishing (or abolishing) DEI offices and staff is NOT the same as abandoning efforts to improve the federal government’s diversity. Those latter efforts have been around for years—in those agencies that do most of their work overseas, like the State Department, USAID, and our foreign intelligence services, it is even more of a mission imperative—and in my view as an HR professional, the words in the EO are spot on.
However, by definition, those efforts also encompass attempts to ensure equal opportunity for all—that is, to level the playing field and make sure everyone is given an equal chance to achieve and demonstrate that merit—and that’s where this gets tricky. In trying to ensure equal opportunity, one is allowed (under certain circumstances) to take what are otherwise discriminatory factors into account in making various employment decisions, including applicant recruiting, on-boarding and acculturation, training and education, deployment, and the like. It even includes workplace justice and discipline.
After all, that’s the essence of a merit-based civil service too, isn’t it? Those laws that establish the overarching (and uniquely American) principle of merit also concomitantly promote equal opportunity in all employment decisions. But as I said, that’s easier said than done.
Balancing merit with legitimate, legally sanctioned affirmative action to correct past (and avoid future) race, age, disability, gender, and other forms of illegal discrimination has always been difficult. Indeed, it’s something that has often found its way to the Supreme Court, in past decisions like Bakke, Bollinger, and much more recently, those involving the North Carolina State University System and Harvard College, in which SCOTUS has dramatically redrawn the lines of legal discrimination in furtherance of affirmative action.
That said, I do think that it’s especially telling that in its most recent rulings on that very emotional subject in college admissions, SCOTUS has in effect “carved out” the various U.S. military academies because of the importance that we as a society place on having a military that reflects the diverse complexion of America. And the last time I looked, that society included the federal government and its civil service, so I would argue that that same principle applies there as well.
That’s why one must read the full text of the “Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” executive order and take a deep breath. To be sure, that EO does take a blunt instrument to killing former President Biden’s more formal DEI efforts—for example, by abolishing government DEI offices, as well as by cancelling government contracts with DEI provisions or services contained in them—but while that may be overkill, there are lots of other inherently positive things in that EO that I fear may get lost in all the hand-wringing.
In other words, I really worry about “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” by those charged with that EO’s implementation.
In making this “baby vs. bathwater” distinction, I do not quarrel with those civil servants who branded (or re-branded) themselves as DEI experts. My bet is that many of them are former EEO specialists, which will help in their longer-term placement, but like many government contractors, they suddenly find themselves on the outs by virtue of arguably overzealous execution of the above executive order. However, in my view, they were just trying to meet the expressly stated requirements of the “government of the day” (that is, the then-Biden administration) and its hunger for DEI-related products and services. Obviously, that’s changed.
Nor do I take issue with those of my professional HR colleagues who are now trying to place those former EEO specialists in other, non-DEI civil service positions that may not be so publicly visible (and politically charged). After all, these are all probably good public servants, and they deserve to be treated as such. The vast majority probably just continued to do what they’d always done in good faith—that is, end any and all discrimination in the federal civil service and in so doing, ensure equal opportunity for all of its employees—so revenge and retribution should be off the table.
Bottom line: While DEI as a discreet function, with discreet funding, budget, staff and contracts, is clearly no more, that that does NOT mean that federal diversity efforts are dead. Those efforts are alive and well, and federal agencies should not be relieved of the difficult but necessary burden of trying to balance individual merit while at the same time, ensuring equal opportunity for all, in every personnel decision that impacts our civil service ranks. That’s not easy, but that’s our job. It always has been, and nothing has changed.
Ron Sanders is a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and a retired career member of the Senior Executive Service. Among other posts in the private sector and academe, he served as director of civilian personnel at the Defense Department, chief human resources officer for IRS, associate director of OPM, CHCO for the US intelligence community, Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton, director of the University of South Florida’s School of Public Affairs, and chairman of the Federal Salary Council.
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