'Civil rights canon in American law': Trump rescinds historic LBJ nondiscrimination order

22 January

With a stroke of a pen, President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Tuesday that overturned government policies going back six decades that banned discrimination and required affirmative action by federal contractors. This order canceled directives established by previous orders, including those issued by Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and Barack Obama. The move, executed late Tuesday, came just a day after President Trump rescinded executive orders requiring diversity and affirmative action in the federal workplace.

In 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, banning federal contractors “from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” according to the U.S. Department of Labor, which was charged with ensuring its compliance. Until President Trump rescinded it on Tuesday, EO11246 also required “contractors to take affirmative action to ensure that equal opportunity is provided in all aspects of their employment.”

President Barack Obama in 2014 amended that order via Executive Order 13672, which added “sexual orientation or gender identity” to the list of protected classes.

In his Tuesday executive order, “Trump said the OFCCP [Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs] must immediately stop promoting diversity and affirmative action, and cease ‘allowing or encouraging’ contractors and subcontractors to engage in ‘workforce balancing’ based on race, sex, color, religion, national origin, and ‘sexual preference,'” according to Bloomberg Law.

“Trump has jumped into action in weakening diversity, equity, and inclusion policies since his inauguration. He already signed a pair of executive orders on Jan. 20 that eliminated DEI programs within the federal government and restricted the definition of ‘gender’ to male and female,” Bloomberg reported. “Trump’s sweeping new order Tuesday also aimed to ‘encourage’ private-sector companies to end ‘illegal’ DEI programs by redefining them as a form of discrimination.”

Axios reported, “This takes the current pushback on diversity, equity and inclusion into the next stratosphere — abolishing decades of government standards on diversity and equal opportunity, and seeking to crackdown on the same in the private sector.”

Trump on Tuesday also effectively furloughed all employees throughout the federal government, placing them on leave with pay. It is expected that he will terminate their employment.

“The memo, issued Tuesday to heads of departments and agencies, sets a deadline of no later than 5 p.m. ET Wednesday to inform the employees that they will be put on paid administrative leave as the agencies prepare to close all DEI-related offices and programs and to remove all websites and social media accounts for such offices,” NBC News reported. “It also asks federal agencies to submit a written plan by Jan. 31 for dismissing the employees.”

“Trump signed an executive order Monday ending ‘radical and wasteful’ diversity, equity and inclusion programs in federal agencies, with DEI offices and programs being ordered to shut down.”

Trump has a history of battling government anti-discrimination regulations. His real estate business was sued in the 1970s by the U.S. Department of Justice in a racial discrimination case.

“Trump and his father fiercely fought a 1973 discrimination lawsuit brought by the Justice Department for their alleged refusal to rent apartments in predominantly white buildings to black tenants,” the Associated Press reported in a 2016 fact check. “Testimony showed that the applications filed by black apartment seekers were marked with a ‘C’ for ‘colored.’ A settlement that ended the lawsuit did not require the Trumps to explicitly acknowledge that discrimination had occurred — but the government’s description of the settlement said Trump and his father had ‘failed and neglected’ to comply with the Fair Housing Act.”

Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis on Wednesday called LBJ’s EO11246 “a fundamental piece of the civil rights canon in American law.”

“The symbolism” in Trump revoking the order, “is huge,” he added.

“The phrase ‘affirmative action’ was used by JFK in a 1961 order on equal employment. Johnson followed it with this order, which survived six Republican presidents — including Trump’s first term,” noted ABC News Radio’s Steven Portnoy. “He revoked it last night.”

“The rollback of civil rights intensifies. For almost six decades, Executive Order 11246 (signed by LBJ in 1965) forbade federal contractors and vendors to discriminate by race, color, national origin, religion, sex, etc. This morning, the president revoked it,” commented Tom Sugrue, a Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis and History.

Laurence Tribe, the noted constitutional law scholar and retired Harvard Law professor, observed: “There goes six decades of progress toward justice begun by LBJ.”

Nicholas Sarwark, former Chair of the Libertarian National Committee, noted: “One of the goals of MAGA is to repeal the civil rights era, making segregation, discrimination, and voter suppression legal and deny people their rights under the Constitution and the laws of the United States. Will that make life better for you, your family, or your neighbors?”

At The New Republic, Malcolm Ferguson wrote: “This is a massive, regressive attack on basic policy that helps protect people from real discrimination. And it won’t lower the price of eggs.”

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