In the hours after his inauguration, for the second time, President Donald Trump revoked all Diversity, Equality, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) programmes instituted across the federal government, which also extends to the US Armed Forces.
The policy comes as part of a series of Executive Orders instituted on 20 January 2025 that roll back many of the policies of his progressive predecessor, Joe Biden. The White House have since stated that these measures were “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” that demonstrated “immense public waste and shameful discrimination.”
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Trump has also lifted a ban on oil drilling; responded to what he perceives as an immigration crisis in the country; and has seemingly joked that he will establish a new “External Revenue Service” – in contrast to the ‘Internal Revenue Service’ agency – from tariffs on foreign goods.
Besides the termination of existing DEIA efforts, the presidential order calls for the Director of the Office of Management and Budget to evaluate the “economic and social costs” of these former measures such as federal employment practices, training, and grants.
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Impact on US Armed Forces
As part of the Fiscal Year 2025 President’s Budget request under Biden, published in March 2024, the former government committed $162m to DEIA activities.
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By GlobalDataThese costs were met with some derision by the American conservative political institute, The Heritage Foundation, which pointed at the year-on-year growth from $68m in 2022.
This investment in the military was met with less consternation than the $1bn funds allocated to DEIA activities for the Department of Education, which the Education and Workforce Committee Chairwoman, Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican, criticised last month.
Nevertheless, the Biden administration noted that these 2025 funds would ensure that “our entire workforce lives by fundamental values that bolster unit cohesion, fortify individual and collective strengths, promote innovative solutions to complex challenges, and culminate in efficient mission execution.”
Over the past four years the Department of Defense have viewed DEIA as a “vital strategic military resource” since “diverse backgrounds and experiences bring inherently different outlooks and ways of thinking that are key to innovation within organisations.”
Meanwhile, Trump and his advisers maintain that this mentality was pursued at the cost of meritocratic mobility within the Armed Forces that the new President says he wants to restore.
