President Donald Trump has scored a key victory in his quest to end Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs in the federal government.
On Friday, an appeals court nixed a lower court’s injunction against the president’s executive order to end DEI programs funded with federal tax dollars.
The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va., lifted the nationwide injunction that was imposed by U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson, a Biden appointee, in Baltimore, NBC News reported.
The three-judge panel said that the president’s orders, which included having the Department of Justice investigate companies that utilize DEI policies, were likely constitutional.
But two of the three judges said they did not agree with the substance of the president’s orders and that those who implement them may be violating the Constitution.
“Despite the vitriol now being heaped on DEI, people of good faith who work to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion deserve praise, not opprobrium,” Circuit Judge Albert Diaz said in his opinion, though that appeared to have nothing to do with the law as District Judge Allison Rushing, a Trump appointee, noted in her opinion.
“A judge’s opinion that DEI programs ‘deserve praise, not opprobrium’ should play absolutely no part in deciding this case,” she wrote.
In February, Attorney General Pam Bondi ended federal lawsuits that the Biden administration had filed against local police and fire departments over their merit-based hiring policies.
Under the Biden administration, the DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights had sued local first responders for prioritizing merit in hiring rather than making decisions based on race, Just the News reported.
“Despite no evidence of intentional discrimination – only statistical disparities – the prior administration branded the aptitude tests at issue in these cases as discriminatory in an effort to advance a DEI agenda,” the DOJ said in a news release.
“And it sought to coerce cities into conducting DEI-based hiring in response and spending millions of dollars in taxpayer funds for payouts to previous applicants who had scored lower on the tests, regardless of qualifications,” the news release added.
President Donald Trump signed executive orders ending Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies within the federal government, and Bondi’s decision this week marks the latest development in the ongoing effort to roll back DEI initiatives under the new administration.
Bondi’s office stated that DEI policies pose a threat to public safety and indicated that dismissing the cases represents an “an early step toward eradicating illegal DEI preferences across the government and in the private sector.”
“American communities deserve firefighters and police officers to be chosen for their skill and dedication to public safety – not to meet DEI quotas,” Bondi said.
The proposed consent decrees typically acknowledged that the departments used neutral selection criteria, such as credit checks, written exams, and physical fitness tests, to evaluate candidates for open positions. However, White men tended to achieve higher scores or perform better on these assessments, Fox News added.
For instance, a lawsuit filed in October against the City of Durham, North Carolina, alleged “unintentional” discrimination against Black applicants, citing that they failed to meet the required 70% passing score on the written exam at a lower rate than White candidates, resulting in fewer Black hires.
As a remedy, the complaint proposed eliminating the neutral written test and providing “back pay and/or preferential hiring” for Black candidates who were not selected due to their exam performance. The estimated cost of these measures was approximately $980,000 in monetary relief.
In a separate case filed against the Maryland State Police in October 2024, it was proposed that the agency discontinue its current selection methods, which included a written test requiring a score of 70% or higher and a physical assessment consisting of push-ups, sit-ups, a flexibility reach, a trigger pull, and a 1.5-mile run, Fox added.
“Because Black applicants passed the test less often than White applicants and because women passed the physical test less often than men, the Civil Rights Division concluded that Maryland was illegally discriminating against Black applicants and women,” a filing in the case said.
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