Executive Order #13950

By: Hana Moradi

By the end of his first term in office, on September 22nd, 2020, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 13950, ‘Combatting Race and Sex Stereotyping.’ By signing this executive order, President Trump aimed to reduce Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) training practices in workplaces, federal agencies, and contractors. 

President Trump and his administration stated that the enforcement of DEI practices in training created “divisiveness” instead of collaboration and cooperation in the workplace. One of the main motives in issuing this order is to limit the use of the Critical Race Theory - the idea that discrimination based on race has been perpetually embedded in American history. This was President Trump’s attempt to reduce the iterative notion that racism "is interwoven into every fabric of America" (EO 13950). By having this theory addressed in the workplace, he believed it would cause guilt and division between the American people. In the order, President Trump states that the “[DEI training practices] are designed to divide us and to prevent us from uniting as one people in pursuit of one common destiny for our great country.”

Executive Order 13950 directly impacted federal agencies and contractors. The order created a clear guideline that these agencies and contractors had to follow when generating their DEI training practices. The order also forced these agencies and contractors to submit reports on their training processes; if any part of the order was violated within the training, it had to be exempt from the practices to be compliant with the order’s guidelines. 

As President Trump issued the executive order, it immediately received major national backlash as many stated it stifled significant conversations surrounding race and sex discrimination. People believed the order placed a pause on America’s move towards becoming a more unified country, instead, only creating a polarized society. Only three months after the issuing of EO 13950, Judge Beth Labson Freeman, a Federal Judge of the Northern District of California, temporarily blocked the administration, (called a “nationwide injunction”) of EO 13950 due to the ruling that the order violated the First Amendment. She went forth with this ruling for two major reasons: the initial reason was because EO 13950 placed restrictions on the ability to discuss race, sex, and other issues in the workplace. The second major reason was because in the creation of this order, President Trump created highly broad guidelines on what was not allowed to be discussed, meaning that nearly anything surrounding the topic of DEI was prohibited, infringing upon the First Amendment of Free Speech. This ruling created by Judge Freeman temporarily halted the application of EO 13950 until further legal proceedings could be resolved. 

However, on January 20th, 2021, his first day in office, President Joe Biden created Executive Order 13985, revoking Executive Order 13950. President Biden’s EO 13985, titled ‘Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities’, focused on the promotion of racial equity and inclusion across the nation in federal agencies, corporations, contractors, and all workplaces. There was also a major focus on accessibility for all communities, particularly those who had been historically marginalized. President Biden’s order completely shifted America’s approach to diversity and racial equity, wholly nullifying President Trump’s EO 13950. 

However, along with the many other executive orders signed on his first day in office, President Trump resigned EO 13950, annulling President Biden’s EO 13985 on January 20th, 2025. In comparison to the original EO 13950, the issuing of its second form, named ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,’ is much stricter. The executive order mandated the “termination, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions; all ‘equity action plans,’ ‘equity’ actions, initiatives, or programs, ‘equity-related’ grants or contracts; and all DEI or DEIA performance requirements for employees, contractors, or grantees.”

"Executive Order 13950—Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping." The American Presidency Project, University of California, Santa Barbara, 22 Sept. 2020, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/executive-order-13950-combating-race-and-sex-stereotyping

Trump, Donald J. "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing." The White House, 20 Jan. 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/.

Trump, Donald J. "Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping." Federal Register, vol. 85, no. 189, 28 Sept. 2020, pp. 60683–60689. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/28/2020-21534/combating-race-and-sex-stereotyping.

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "National Urban League v. Trump: Challenging Trump's 'Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping'." NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 29 Oct. 2020, https://www.naacpldf.org/national-urban-league-v-trump-challenging-anti-dei-executive-order/.