The State Department has eliminated Biden-era policies that incorporated diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility goals into diplomatic work, promotion standards and foreign assistance, replacing them with rules emphasizing merit, traditional diplomatic skills and alignment with the Trump administration’s foreign policy priorities.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
The Trump administration has dismantled Biden-era State Department directives that instructed U.S. diplomats to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility policies abroad and incorporated DEI-related considerations into Foreign Service advancement and training.
The policy reversal is part of a broader restructuring of the State Department under President Donald Trump that officials say is intended to return the diplomatic corps to a primary focus on U.S. national interests, professional skills and merit-based advancement, 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,” Pigott said.
The policies being eliminated included instructions developed during former President Joe Biden’s administration directing State Department leadership to discuss racial, gender, disability and LGBTQI+ matters with officials in other countries.
One Biden-era guideline instructed department leaders to “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 former administration also incorporated DEI-related activities into criteria considered in the professional advancement of diplomats.
Guidance directed State Department personnel 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.”
Employees were additionally instructed to undertake their own education on diversity and inclusion topics rather than “depending on others — particularly others from historically marginalized groups” to provide that instruction.
The Biden-era approach and its subsequent reversal have also been highlighted in social media discussion over the changes.
Under Trump, those expectations are being removed as a factor in diplomatic training and career advancement.
The administration has instead said Foreign Service personnel should be evaluated and trained around substantive diplomatic capabilities and their effectiveness in carrying out U.S. foreign policy.
The overhaul extends beyond personnel policies.
A State Department Federal Register notice published in January established new requirements governing grants and other forms of U.S. foreign assistance.
The regulation states that foreign 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.”
The administration said the rule was intended to prevent U.S. taxpayer money from being used to finance programs it considers discriminatory or ideologically driven.
“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.
The rule defines what the administration calls “discriminatory equity ideology” as an approach that categorizes people according to group identity instead of evaluating them individually.
“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 State Department further argued that exporting those policies through American foreign assistance can harm both recipient countries and U.S. interests.
“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.”
Under the regulation, organizations receiving State Department foreign-assistance funds are prohibited from using that money to support DEI programs that the administration considers unlawful.
“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 State Department document said.
The administration’s broader reversal has also been highlighted in an additional online post.
Taken together, the personnel reforms and foreign-assistance regulations represent a broad break with the Biden administration’s use of DEI principles as part of American diplomacy.
Under Biden, diplomats were encouraged to raise social inclusion, racial and gender equity, disability issues and LGBTQI+ concerns with foreign governments, and employees were expected to demonstrate efforts to address perceived bias within the State Department itself.
Under Trump, the department says those expectations are being replaced by an approach centered on merit, conventional diplomatic competencies and advancing U.S. interests abroad.
The changes also restrict how organizations receiving American foreign-assistance money can use those funds, extending the administration’s domestic campaign against DEI programs into the State Department’s overseas spending and diplomatic operations.
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