Trump State Department Axes Biden-Era Initiative That Sought to Spread DEI Around the World
Trump administration reforms have ended efforts to turn the State Department into a DEI sales force.
Biden-era guidelines that ordered diplomats to push a diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies agenda on foreign governments have been scrapped, according to Fox News.
“Under the Trump Administration, America’s diplomats are tasked with advocating for our national interests on the world stage — not demonstrating adherence to woke political dogmas,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said.
“The State Department is implementing sweeping reforms to the Foreign Service to prioritize merit, refocus training on tangible diplomatic skills, and prepare our nation’s diplomats to deliver America’s answer to our most pressing challenges,” he said.
Biden administration rules spoke of having State Department leaders “raise social inclusion, racial/gender equity, disability, and LGBTQI+ issues with high-level host country interlocutors, especially in countries where these issues are problematic.”
The previous administration’s extreme DEI agenda imposed ideological litmus tests on government workers and robbed nearly 300 Foreign Service Officers of promotion opportunities.
Now the State Department is rewarding merit and providing restitution to those unjustly impacted.…
— Department of State (@StateDept) November 19, 2025
Under former President Joe Biden, DEI advocacy was a criterion for promotion. It is not so now.
State Department guidelines called for diplomats to be “actively working to break down not just race/ethnicity/gender/LGBTQI+/disability biases, but also bias among the civil service and foreign service, U.S. direct hires and contracting colleagues, and within foreign service cones.”
Staff were also ordered to spend their own time wallowing in DEI instruction instead of “depending on others — particularly others from historically marginalized groups” to help them.
Biden-era directive for diplomats to peddle DEI on foreign governments scrapped by State Departmenthttps://t.co/emvfT63bTS
— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) August 13, 2026
The reforms are part of the Trump administration’s effort to correct the course of the State Department.
A Federal Register notice from the State Department published in January noted that in its grants and other forms of assistance, the department would not support woke ideology, writing that assistance must “align with State Department policies opposing gender ideology, discriminatory equity ideology, unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, and abortion as a method of family planning overseas.”
“Under previous administrations, U.S. foreign assistance was abused to fund discriminatory diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) policies and similar ideologies that promoted corrosive identity politics rather than alleviating poverty or promoting human flourishing and prosperity,” the document said.
“This ideology, referred to in this rule as discriminatory equity ideology, treats individuals as members of preferred or disfavored groups, rather than as individuals, and minimizes agency, merit, and capability in favor of generalizations,” the document added.
“The promotion abroad of radical DEI activities and the ideology of discriminatory equity ideology that undergirds it, undermines the wellbeing and flourishing of foreign nations and promote radical ideologies.”
The document said any entity receiving U.S. funds cannot use it to support DEI.
“It is the purpose of this rule to end taxpayer support for radical discriminatory equity ideology, directly or indirectly, and to end all forms of unlawful DEI-related discrimination by recipients of foreign assistance, and thereby to unwind efforts of the prior administration, and of nongovernmental and international organizations, that have integrated and encouraged discrimination and discriminatory equity ideology in foreign assistance programs,” the document said.
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