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This is an adapted excerpt from the Jan. 25 episode of “The Katie Phang Show.”
President Donald Trump told the World Economic Forum last week: “My administration is taking action to abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity and inclusion nonsense ... America will once again become a merit-based country.”
On his first full day back in the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order that ended what he called “radical and wasteful” diversity, equity and inclusion programs in federal agencies. It’s unclear how many workers ultimately will be affected, but what is evident is the impact this will have on the government and the country.
Trump’s actions echo President Woodrow Wilson’s then-unprecedented segregation of federal offices in 1913. Then, there was no official law, no executive order, just guiding policy — policy that led to Black employees being segregated or summarily dismissed from federal positions nationwide.
The Wilson administration took steps to make obtaining a civil service job more difficult. Primary among these was a requirement, starting in 1914, that all candidates for civil service jobs attach a photograph to their application, further allowing for discrimination in the hiring process.
Segregation is not humiliating but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.”
President woodrow wilson
The Black workers who managed to keep their jobs were often subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment. In an open letter to Wilson, W.E.B. Du Bois wrote, “We are told that one colored clerk who could not actually be segregated on account of the nature of his work has consequently had a cage built around him to separate him from his white companions of many years.”
Take a second to let that sink in: a cage.
Wilson defended his racist policies to a group of Black professionals, saying in part, “Segregation is not humiliating but a benefit, and ought to be so regarded by you gentlemen.”
In 1948, President Harry Truman signed a pair of executive orders that banned segregation in federal civil service, but the damage had already been done — and it continues to this day.
While more than 18% of federal workers are Black, they only comprise 11.7% of senior executive positions, according to data from a 2022 report from the White House's Office of Personnel Management (OMP). Hiring data shows white employees are twice as likely to be promoted to management in some agencies. The pay gap between federal Black and white workers sits at around 15%, according to data also from the OMP. As late as February 2023, about 4 in 10 Black federal workers told the Pew Research Center they have experienced discrimination or have been treated unfairly at work because of their race or ethnicity.
Stephanie Brumsey contributed.