US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday initiated an end to affirmative action in federal contracting and ordered all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff to be placed on paid leave and eventually fired.

Movements follow an executive order Trump signed on the first day ordering a sweeping repeal of federal government diversity and inclusion programs that could touch everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners. Trump called the programs “discrimination” and insisted on re-establishing purely “merit-based” hiring.

The affirmative action executive order revokes an order issued by US President Lyndon Johnson and limits the DEI programs of federal contractors and grantees.

He is using one of the key tools used by the Biden administration to promote DEI programs in the private sector — encouraging their use by federal contractors — to now eradicate them.

Office of Personnel Management in a letter dated Tuesday ordered the agencies to place DEI office staff on paid leave until Wednesday at 5:00 PM ET and to remove all public websites targeting DEI by the same deadline. Several federal ministries took down websites even before the memorandum.

Agencies must also cancel any DEI-related training and terminate any related contracts, and federal workers are required to report to Trump’s Office of Personnel Management if they suspect any DEI-related program has been renamed to obscure its purpose. purpose within 10 days or face “adverse consequences.”

By Thursday, federal agencies were ordered to compile a list of federal DEI offices and workers since Election Day. He is expected to develop a plan by next Friday to carry out a “force reduction action” against those federal workers.

The memorandum was first reported by CBS News.

The move comes later Monday’s executive order accused former US President Joe Biden of pushing an agenda of “discrimination” into “virtually every aspect of the federal government” through “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, known as DEI.

The move is the first salvo in an aggressive campaign to bolster DEI’s nationwide efforts, including using the U.S. Justice Department and other agencies to investigate private companies that conduct training and hiring practices that conservative critics say discriminate against non-minority groups like whites.

Aggressive campaign

The executive order picks up where Trump’s first administration left off: One of Trump’s last acts during his first term was an executive order barring federal agency contractors and recipients of federal funds from conducting anti-bias training that addresses concepts like systemic racism.

Biden promptly rescinded that order on his first day in office and issued a pair of executive orders — now revoked — outlining a plan to promote DEI in the federal government.

While many changes may take months or even years to implement, Trump’s new anti-DEI agenda is more aggressive than his first and comes amid more accessible terrain in the corporate world.

Prominent companies from Walmart to Facebook have already scaled back or eliminated some of their diversity practices in response to Trump’s election and conservative-backed lawsuits against them.