
During the first term of President Trump, employees at the Ministry of Education would regularly remind the value of a diverse workplace from their top leaders.
Orientation presentations for new employees devoted more than half a dozen images to support diversity, equity and integration and encourage new tenants to join the affinity groups, become “diversity and integration champions” and support the “Agent for change of diversity” of the Ministry.
This effort, which was rooted in the ethos of the Ministry, was not enforced by career employees or democratic officials. They came to the insistence of the hard conservative President Trump to lead the agency, including the Minister of Education at that time Betsy Devos.
“Diversity and integration are the basic stones of high organizational performance,” wrote Mrs. Devos in a note of 2020 employees, among a number of internal documents from this period acquired by The New York Times.
In the second term of office Mr. Trump, these same principles are now banned by lexicon – and employees who supported them are goals.
At least 74 people at the Ministry of Education were issued on an administrative holiday in the fluctuating intervention of Mr. Trump aimed at eradicating Dei from the federal government.
Almost everything seems to have voluntarily applied for a committee that has the task of initiative in diversity, attended training or otherwise involved with Dei programs in some way – some to support its managers, according to the US Federation The trade union, which represents 800,000 public sector employees.
Through the executive order, Mr. Trump built a bull eye on programs and job titles tied directly or exclusively with what the administration considered “harmful” and “waste” initiatives aimed at reversing system barriers for women, minorities and people with disabilities. However, the efforts were far -reaching and hit employees who have been only marginally exposed to such programming in recent years and penalized those who have not issued from Mr. Trump on any Dei initiatives.
The sweeping dragnet was angry and frightened those who are now facing a prospect of losing employment. Some are preparing for legal steps.
Subodh Chandra, a lawyer representing several government employees who have been in the last three weeks, wrote in a letter to the lawyers of the Ministry of Education that those who participated in anti -discrimination activities.
“The way on which the department is on is cruel and uncertain,” Mr. Chandra wrote.
In an interview, Mr. Chandra said one of his clients, an Iraqi war veteran, was placed on vacation on January 31. Another client, a graduate of West Point and an army veteran, who joined Mr. Trump’s first administration to the Dei Council, was also on holiday.
“It works as a classic fraud in bait and switches, where they were the political denominators of the same president for all the activities for which these loyal civil servants, including veterans, are now punished,” Mr. Chandra said.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Education did not respond to more comment applications.
In her statement, Chief of Staff Mrs. Devos, Nate Bailey, she suggested that there was a difference between what she pushed as a secretary and what Mr. Trump tried to eradicate.
“Only false news could be so deliberately unconscious that confusion of diversity with corrosive dei,” Mr. Bailey said.
At her first first meeting of all employees in 2017, Mrs. Devos told employees that building a diverse workplace is inherent in the effective creation of policy.
“When building strong teams, accepting diversity and integration of key elements of success,” said Mrs. Devos. “Diversity can be considered a cliché, but I believe that they will meet with them, and, including people who are different from us, enrich and expand. And if we model it ourselves, how much easier it will be to encourage students to do the same? ”
More employees said the Times that they had signed up for Dei programs or helped them to start their superiors, because such initiatives were important for Mrs. Devos, who would later resign from her place after January 6 on Capitol.
It was not until 2020, the last year of Mr. Trump’s first year, his denunchers still accepted volunteers for employees of the department, diversity and inclusion of the Council.
The mission of the committee was to support the “environment in which all employees, whether their identities are fully included, involved, connected, respected, respected, safe, satisfied and fulfilled, and also in the workplace in which the obstacles of diversity and equal opportunities are removed” Charty.
The Charter for the Committee – which the current Trump administration dissolved on the third day – was signed by the head of the Ministry of Kenneth L. Marcus at that time.
“I am determined to promote the culture of diversity, integration and respect within our workforce, because I believe that the diversity of our workforce allows us to better serve the students and families of our nation,” he wrote in -mail in February 2020, who encourages all employees to participate.
In June 2020, Mr. Marcus Kimberly Richey, with members who were selected to represent their offices, said that the Times was “eagerly”.
“When we work together to promote diversity, justice and integration into OCR, I want to ask you to leave the Eedic statement in the center of our work on Wednesday,” wrote Mrs. Richey and the abbreviation of the Civil Rights Office.
Five years later, only a few more agencies were made as an aggressive campaign against Dei as department.
Mrs. Richey, who, as the acting head of the Ministry’s Civil Rights Office in the last days of the first period Mr. Trump the instructions issued With the exception of federal protection for Transgender, students were recently nominated by Mr. Trump to return to lead the office. She did not respond to the request for comment.
In an interview, Mr. Marcus said this week that it was “appropriate” for Trump’s administration to review the initiative, such as his to make sure that they had not changed in the vehicle for discrimination against groups that were not historically represented.
“Unfortunately, it is ironic that programs of diversity, justice and inclusion, which seem to accelerate non -discrimination, in fact, often is often behind the opposite principle,” he said. “If someone wants to be consistent in removing bias and discrimination, they must first get rid of Dei.”
Linda McMahon, who faces senators during a confirmation hearing, chose Mr. Trump to operate the education department in her second administration, claiming that Dei had led to the “segregation of our schools”.
“It was introduced, seemingly for greater diversity, for justice and integration,” she said. “And I think what we see is that it has the opposite effect.”
The department refused to say what will happen to employees who were recently placed on holiday. UsuallyFederal workers cannot usually be on investigative holidays after more than 10 working days, but letters that employees have received a note is not “disciplinary”, suggesting that this might be vague. Officials of the department did not tell the officials of the trade unions the fate of workers and stated that the information is not available.
Those who participated in the initiative of the first Trump Administration administration reject the idea that the original objectives of these programs were later substructed.
Several of those who placed on administrative holidays this year completed a two -day workshop for education of diversity during Mrs. Devos, for whom the certificate signed by Denise L. Carter, then assistant in the financing and operations office.
Mrs. Carter, a close ally of Mrs. Devos, acted as a reigning secretary, while Mrs. McMahon is undergoing a confirmation process.
One employee who was on vacation said she had completed the course nine years ago and is on the internal list of hundreds of participants. The employer, who spoke of the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said she fears that every day she gets an e -mail that informs her that she will be released.
She described recent events as “Modern McCarthyism”, he added: “We are basically on the list and we were blackball.”
The current attack of the President on diversity programs is a shift from the language he used five years ago.
In the last months of his first term of office 22 September 2020, Mr. Trump signed a executive order called “Fighting a race and sexual stereotypes“, In which it seemed to support the same type of training that employees of the Ministry of Education now find themselves for participating.
“Employee training to create an inclusive workplace is appropriate and beneficial,” said the order with Mr. Trump’s signature. “The federal government is and must always be tied to fair and equal treatment of all individuals before the law.”
The ranking was struggling with certain forms of training “unconscious”, which he believes maintained “dividing concepts”, such as the idea that “the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist”.
Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist and writer who has worked on the conservatives to move further correctly On educational policy, he said in a written response to a recent survey from the time that Salvo programs against the diversity in the education department were part of the “counter -revolutionary plan” for the second Trump administration.
“We dominated the war for public opinion and now we have reached the final coup: the abolition of Dei throughout the federal government,” he said.