Since early 2024, the Protection Division has lower or restructured 188 jobs that when managed its variety, fairness, inclusion and accessibility efforts — together with underneath President Trump’s 2025 push to dismantle federal DEI efforts — in line with a Authorities Accountability Workplace report launched Thursday.
No DEI-related jobs are anticipated to stay within the U.S. army after the top of April, the congressional watchdog stated in a letter to the highest Republicans and Democrats on Congress’s armed providers committees.
Based on GAO, the cuts to DEI-related jobs occurred in two waves: The primary in 2024, as a part of a provision included in that yr’s Nationwide Protection Authorization Act, after which this yr on account of the Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI within the army.
GAO discovered that the NDAA-driven cuts in 2024 resulted in 32 jobs being utterly eradicated, with one other 115 positions being restructured to cut back or eradicate their DEI-driven duties. These findings have been reported to the armed providers committees’ staffs throughout a briefing in late January.
At the moment, GAO stated, DOD workers who labored on diversity-related issues carried out jobs that included creating coaching packages, supporting committees and dealing teams, sustaining and analyzing information and responding to reporting necessities.
As of July 2024, on account of the NDAA-driven cuts, DOD had 41 DEI positions, 25 of which have been army and 16 civilian. After President Donald Trump issued sweeping anti-DEI orders early in his second administration — rescinding former President Joe Biden’s 2021 order to broaden the variety of the federal workforce — all of these jobs have been both abolished or restructured.
GAO additionally discovered the army didn’t broadly use contractors for DEI actions. The Military had one part-time DEI contract worker, whose contract was not renewed, and the Protection Advisory Committee on Variety and Inclusion used two contract personnel, one in every of whom was a part-time analysis place. Protection workplaces had a minimum of 44 contracts for DEI providers, principally for coaching, in 2023, GAO discovered.
The 2024 NDAA barred the DOD from appointing or using any civilian worker in a job that was primarily associated to DEI issues at any Normal Schedule grade larger than GS-10. Anybody who already held a job at GS-11 or above needed to be reassigned by June 19, 2024.
Earlier than these cuts, the division had six DEI workers within the Senior Govt Service and 24 on the highest Normal Schedule grade, GS-15. There have been 37 GS-14s, 36 GS-13s, 51 GS-12s and 5 GS-11s. There have been simply 4 workers at GS-9 and beneath.
Through the DEI purge within the first half of 2024, 32 civilian jobs have been eradicated fully and 115 have been restructured, GAO stated.
Earlier than these positions started to be eradicated, the Air Pressure and Area Pressure had the best variety of DEI-related positions of the providers, totaling 103, adopted by the Navy with 32.
After the 2024 cuts, the Air Pressure and Area Pressure had probably the most DEI-related jobs, with 19 service members and no civilians performing these duties. The Navy had three civilians and one service member performing these jobs, and the Military had seven civilians and 5 troopers engaged on DEI issues. Different DOD elements had six civilians in whole.
A lot of the division’s civilian DEI jobs, 102 in whole, served in administrative roles, corresponding to variety and inclusion coordinators. One other 31 have been program analysts, and there have been seven equal employment managers.
The Pentagon created a job pressure in February, underneath Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth’s orders, to supervise the elimination of DEI workplaces. The duty pressure, which fell underneath the undersecretary of Protection for personnel and readiness, outlined a DEI workplace or job as one which was “established for the aim of influencing hiring or employment practices or selling preferential remedy on the idea of race, intercourse, colour or ethnicity,” GAO stated, adopting the identical definition Trump specified by his Jan. 27 government order cracking down on DEI.
Based on GAO, the duty pressure confirmed on March 1 that the division was now not utilizing gender, race, or ethnicity to set targets for organizational composition, tutorial admissions or profession fields.
GAO additionally examined the Protection Advisory Committee on Ladies within the Providers, or DACOWITS, which has existed since 1951 to advise the protection secretary on issues referring to recruitment, retention, well-being and remedy of girls within the army. DACOWITS officers stated it doesn’t develop or implement DEI coverage and its civilian workers was not affected by the 2024 NDAA.
GAO finally determined DACOWITS is “DEI-adjacent,” however didn’t depend its two civilian and two army positions in its totals.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Protection Information. He beforehand lined management and personnel points at Air Pressure Occasions, and the Pentagon, particular operations and air warfare at Navy.com. He has traveled to the Center East to cowl U.S. Air Pressure operations.
