Email demands US government workers report DEI programmes

The Trump administration sent an email to thousands of employees on Wednesday, telling them to report any attempts to “cover up” various investigations in their agencies or face “severe consequences”.

The request came after President Donald Trump banned various offices and programs in the government on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

Emails seen by the BBC told staff to “report all developments” to the government’s new address within 10 days.

Some staffers interpreted it as trying to sell their colleagues in the White House.

“We are very tired and overwhelmed,” said a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official.

The Office of Personnel Management, which oversees public employees, issued instructions for union leaders to send notices to their employees by 5:00 pm Eastern on Wednesday. It included an email template that many government employees received that night.

Other employees, such as those at the Treasury Department, received mixed emails.

The Department of Finance’s email did not include a warning about “adverse consequences” for not reporting DEI, according to a document shared with the BBC.

In one of his first acts as president, Trump signed into law the last two “diversity, equality, and inclusion” or “DEI” programs in the government and announced that everyone working on them would be terminated. immediately be placed on paid leave.

Such programs are designed to increase minority participation in the workforce and educate employees about discrimination.

But critics of DEI, like Trump, argue that the practice is discriminatory because it is based on race, gender, sexual identity or other characteristics.

Trump and his allies attacked the practice frequently during the campaign.

Speaking on Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump announced that he was making America a “sustainable country”.

DEI critics applauded Trump’s decision.

“President Trump’s order to deauthorize and ban DEI programs is an important step in the advancement of American civil rights and an important step in building a non-racial community,” said Yukong Mike Zhao, President of the Asian American Coalition for Education. words.

The group supported successful efforts in the US Supreme Court to end US university programs.

But civil servants here, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, said the email they received appeared to be an attempt to intimidate staff rather than to ensure justice.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Trump has signed a number of executive orders since taking office, including a federal government shutdown, a back-to-office order and an attempt to reassign thousands of federal workers to avoid burnout.

An HHS official who spoke to the BBC criticized the government’s DEI practices, believing that although it was important to create a diverse workforce and create opportunities for health and medical care, “the politics of identity has helped the way we work efficiently and it is not in the best interest of employees”.

But it does not mean that I want my friends to be fired,” added the employee.

He described the impact of email and DEI regulations on his organization as “calculated chaos”.

The employee sector has been disrupted, he said, with questions about the hiring process going forward, as well as the programs and guidelines that have been allowed to continue, given Trump’s definition of DEI.

A deputy HHS official said that funding for procurement and research has been suspended and that all department officials are waiting to see what they can do.

HHS, and one of its subsidiaries, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provides millions of dollars in grants to universities and researchers around the world to advance scientific research.

Officials at the agency fear that the DEI plan could have problems outside of the state. One questioned whether the funding that allowed laboratories to create more opportunities to hire fewer scientists and medical professionals would now take the axe.

An employee who works at the Food and Drug Administration told the BBC that he had not received the email, but that everything related to the DEI had been suspended.

“We were told by the authorities to continue doing our jobs,” he said. “But there are fears about how it will affect our overall work.”