Contact:
Tim Kauffman
202-639-6405/202-374-6491
[email protected]
WASHINGTON – American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley today issued the following statement in response to a Jan. 21 memorandum from the Office of Personnel Management ordering the closure of all Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) offices in the federal government:
“The federal government already hires and promotes exclusively on the basis of merit. The results are clear: a diverse federal workforce that looks like the nation it serves, with the lowest gender and racial pay gaps in the country. We should all be proud of that.
“Over half of the 642,000 veterans serving in our federal government have service-connected disabilities. One important role diversity, equity, and inclusion programs perform is ensuring the workplace is welcoming and accessible to these veterans so a diverse workforce can harness its collective strengths to better serve the public. Eliminating these programs will unfairly harm veterans wearing their second uniform in service of their country.
“Ultimately, these attacks on DEIA are just a smokescreen for firing civil servants, undermining the apolitical civil service, and turning the federal government into an army of yes-men loyal only to the president, not the Constitution.”
Additional points
AFGE does not know how many employees could be affected by this action. Agencies have until noon Thursday, Jan. 23, to provide OPM with a complete list of all DEIA offices and employees, as well as a list of all DEIA-related agency contracts, as of Nov. 5, 2024.
Employees identified under this order will be subject to a reduction-in-force. Agencies are instructed to submit their RIF plans by 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 31.
The ability of affected employees to move into other positions will depend on how agencies apply the RIF rules and how expansive the competitive area will be for these positions.
Federal DEI offices perform important work with agencies to ensure the implementation of AI programs do not have discriminatory effects on the American public or the workforce, providing an important guardrail on this emerging technology.
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