By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on January 22, 2025
An Editorial Opinion
Taking a page out of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 playbook, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order No. 14145 that revoked all prior executive orders and actions that guaranteed women and minorities fair access to jobs and contracts in federal agencies and the private business sector.
[Click here to read Executive Order No. 14145 in its entirety.]
Trump claims that “critical and influential institutions of American society, including the Federal Government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, large commercial airlines, law enforcement agencies, and institutions of higher education have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences that are discriminatory and harmful.”
Trump also claims that the revoked executive orders “undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system.”
As such, Trump’s first Executive Order of his second term in office ordered “all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to terminate all discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements. I further order all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.”
Trump also revoked all prior executive orders (dating back to 1965) that were designed to protect women and minorities from widespread discriminatory employment and contracting practices in the government and private sector businesses. Several of these executive orders are specifically listed in Executive Order No. 14145.
Finally, Trump directed all federal agencies, with the assistance of the Attorney General, to take all appropriate action to end fair access protections for women and minorities to employment and contracting opportunities in a broad array of private sector businesses.
Trump ordered each federal agency to "identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars."
Nowhere in Trump’s Executive Order does he acknowledge or reference the history of discrimination against women and minorities in America for over 400 years in fair employment and contracting opportunities. This history is documented in Congressional reports, academic research, and thousands of adjudicated federal court cases, dating back to the 1600s.
In contrast, Congressional reports, academic research, and adjudicated court cases documenting "reverse discrimination" against white men during this 400-year period are extremely rare and scant.
Interestingly, Trump's order does not “prohibit persons teaching at a Federally funded institution of higher education as part of a larger course of academic instruction from advocating for, endorsing, or promoting the unlawful employment or contracting practices prohibited by this order.”
The bottom line of Executive Order No. 14145 is this: Affirmative action in government and private sector employment and contracting opportunities that has the operative effect of excluding women and minorities is now protected by all agencies of the federal government. This form of affirmative action is automatically presumed to be "merit-based." Affirmative action that has the operative effect of affording women and minorities fair access to employment and contracting opportunities that have been historically and systematically denied to them is banned. This form of affirmative action is automatically presumed to be "illegal" and "discriminatory."
Any other interpretation of the plain language of Executive Order No. 14145 is pure political spin.