Washington Federal employees who failed to report peers who hold diversity, equality, inclusion, and accessibility roles that may have gone overlooked by federal supervisors risked consequences, according to emails sent to them on Wednesday.
“We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language,” according to emails that NBC News was able to get from government officials.
Staff members were instructed to inform the Office of Personnel Management if they were “aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies.”
“There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information,” the message read. “However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.”
Since Wednesday evening, employees from several departments and agencies have been receiving emails with the same wording.
Questions concerning the definition of the “adverse consequences” and the potential enforcement of the directive were not immediately answered by White House representatives.
In a memo released Tuesday, the Office of Personnel Management instructed department and agency chiefs to notify staff members by Wednesday at 5 p.m. Several heads utilized a template email that was provided by the office. Whether any department or agency head changed or left out the DEI reporting language for their staff is unknown.
Additionally, by Wednesday evening, the Trump administration had demanded that agency heads put federal workers in DEI positions on paid leave.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to close accessibility and DEI “mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear.”
The OPM template letter for agency heads to send to staff members stated, “These programs caused shameful discrimination, wasted taxpayer dollars, and divided Americans by race.”
The action is the most recent in a string of anti-diversity initiatives that Trump has taken since taking office. He essentially rejected government recognition of non-binary and gender non-conforming individuals on Monday when he issued an executive order stating that the government would only recognize two genders.
An executive order that forbade discrimination by federal contractors and subcontractors was also canceled by Trump this week. According to a Department of Labor summary, the decades-old directive enforced affirmative action and forbade federal contractors from discriminating on the grounds of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.