In a complete one-eighty from the anti-diversity initiative former President Trump issued during his final months in office, President Joe Biden has issued a new executive order tasking the dozens of various departments and agencies within the federal government to each create and submit their own unique plan on how they can increase diversity and inclusion efforts within their workforces. The order is meant to encourage a “direct, comprehensive rethinking” of how DEI efforts can and should operate within each of these agencies.
Erich Wagner of the daily government watchdog site Government Executive has reported that “the order builds on a series of edicts undertaken during the Obama administration, as well as Biden’s own efforts to restore diversity training at federal agencies and crack down on discrimination since he took office in January.”
According to Wagner, the executive order “also charts new territory in how [the government] tries to improve recruitment, retention and professional development of underserved communities, including providing more comprehensive health coverage to LGBTQ+ federal workers, boosting protections for feds with disabilities and pushing agencies to transition from unpaid to paid internships.”
