The Trump administration is being accused of turning the federal bureaucracy into a search and destroy operation for anyone linked to diversity, equity, and inclusion work, using executive orders as cover to track down and fire targeted employees, according to a blistering new lawsuit.
Filed this week in federal court in Washington, D.C., the 58 page class action complaint says Trump’s team “manipulated” agency rules, staffing charts, and hiring authorities so they could root out workers they associated with DEI, LGBTQ advocacy, or the Democratic Party, then push them out of their jobs.
The suit, brought by former employees from agencies including the Department of Homeland Security and the National Institutes of Health, challenges a series of high profile executive orders Trump signed in the first days of his second term. One of them, Executive Order 14151, titled “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing,” ordered federal departments to terminate “all activities relating to ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.’”
Another, Executive Order 14173, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” went even further, revoking long standing contractor rules that barred discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity in federal contract jobs.
On paper, the orders framed the crackdown as a return to “merit based” hiring and a rejection of what Trump called “illegal and immoral discrimination programs” operating under the DEI banner.
In practice, the lawsuit says, the administration used them as a blueprint for a purge. A summary from the ACLU of D.C., which is backing the case, says workers “were targeted for separation from the federal government” under the anti DEI orders in violation of the First Amendment, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and civil service protections.
Reporting from Law & Crime notes that agencies compiled lists of DEI related programs and staff as of November 4, 2024, then used those lists to “ensure the removal of targeted workers,” even when some did not actually hold DEI jobs at the time they were fired.
The lawsuit, Fell v. Trump, describes federal employees being reassigned to “placeholder” positions that were quickly abolished, pushed into performance review traps, or told their jobs had been eliminated only to see similar work handed to people perceived as more ideologically aligned with Trump.
Civil rights groups have already challenged the DEI orders themselves in a separate case, National Urban League v. Trump, arguing that orders 14151, 14168, and 14173 violate free speech and due process by trying to erase any mention of DEI from federal policy and contracting. A federal judge has temporarily blocked parts of the orders from being enforced while that case moves forward.
The new worker lawsuit zooms in on what happened behind the scenes as agencies scrambled to comply. According to the complaint, Trump’s directives became marching orders to hunt for “anyone associated with DEI,” including staff who had once served on diversity councils, attended internal trainings, or listed related work on their résumés.
The plaintiffs say they were never told they did anything wrong, only that their roles were being swept away under reorganization plans tied to the anti DEI orders. Some describe being marched out of offices they had worked in for years with no explanation beyond a printed letter referencing the new policies.
The White House has defended the orders as necessary to end what Trump calls “radical DEI ideology” in government, and Justice Department officials have argued in court that the president has wide latitude to reshape the federal workforce.
