in effect
This is a presidential Executive Order (EO 14173, signed January 21, 2025). It directs all federal executive departments and agencies to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI/DEIA) programs and preferences the order describes as illegal, and to enforce existing civil-rights laws instead. It also revokes several earlier executive actions and orders agencies to take steps aimed at the private sector.
The order revokes four prior executive actions on diversity and environmental justice, and separately revokes Executive Order 11246 (a 1965 equal-employment/affirmative-action order for federal contractors), giving contractors a 90-day window to keep following the old rules. The Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs must immediately stop promoting “diversity,” requiring affirmative action, and allowing race- or sex-based “workforce balancing.” Every new federal contract and grant must now include a term certifying the recipient runs no DEI programs that violate anti-discrimination law, tied to the False Claims Act (31 U.S.C. 3729(b)(4)) so it bears on government payment. Within 120 days, the Attorney General must deliver a strategic enforcement plan, and each agency must identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of large private entities (publicly traded companies, big nonprofits, foundations with $500 million or more in assets, state/local bar and medical associations, and universities with endowments over $1 billion). Also within 120 days, the Attorney General and Secretary of Education must jointly issue guidance to schools and colleges receiving federal funds on complying with the Supreme Court’s 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision.
Federal agencies, federal contractors and subcontractors, and grant recipients feel this directly through revoked rules, new certification terms, and the 90-day transition. Large private organizations — major corporations, nonprofits, foundations, professional associations, and well-endowed universities — plus schools and colleges that receive federal funds are targeted by the planned investigations and forthcoming guidance. The order states it does not apply to lawful veterans’ preferences or Randolph-Sheppard Act protections, and does not bar First Amendment–protected speech or classroom instruction.