Regardless of your political affiliation, the next Trump presidency most certainly promises more divisiveness for diversity, equity and inclusion. At the end of Trump’s presidency in 2020, he signed executive order M-20-37 with the subject “Ending Employee Trainings that Use Divisive Propaganda to Undermine the Principle of Fair and Equal Treatment for All.” Since then, there has been increased scrutiny over DEI in the workplace.
In short, the M-20-37 executive order asks all government agencies to:
- Identify and report all spending on diversity and inclusion training programs.
- Review training materials to ensure they do not promote divisive concepts.
- Align their public-facing information to encourage employees to report any training sessions that violate the standard of fair and equal treatment.
- Remove potentially problematic terms from training and communications, including “white privilege,” “systemic racism,” “unconscious bias,” “intersectionality,” “racial humility” and “critical race theory.”
