January 31, 2025
New Executive Orders and How They Impact You
President Trump has issued a number of Executive Orders that may impact private sector employers, including those who are not government contractors.
Executive Order (EO) Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity – issued January 21, 2025. This EO provides in part that within 120 days, “the Attorney General, in consultation with the heads of relevant agencies and in coordination with the Director of OMB, shall submit a report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy containing recommendations for enforcing Federal civil-rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI…encourage the private sector to end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences and comply with all Federal civil-rights laws…This order does not apply to lawful Federal or private-sector employment and contracting preferences for veterans of the U.S. armed forces.” (emphasis added). In the order, “illegal” DEI plans and programs are described as “race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) or ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) that can violate the civil-rights laws of this Nation.” Talk to your company’s legal counsel. If your programs do not have that affect, intended or otherwise, you may need to make no changes to your current related policies, programs, or practices.
If your company has any covered contracts with the federal government, a number of other orders may also apply to you, some of which are listed below.
Affirmative Action Plans. The above order also rescinds EO 11246 and removes the requirement for covered contractors to maintain written affirmative action plans. For 90 days from the date of the order, federal contractors may continue to maintain their plans required under EO 11246. Thereafter, federal contractors may not maintain these plans. The OFCCP issued a notice regarding this EO.
Stop Work Orders. Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued on Friday, January 24th, a stop work order, directing a pause on spending for up to 90 days on most existing foreign assistance award programs (contracts, grants, etc.). This directive may be part of the implementation of EO Reevaluating And Realigning United States Foreign Aid – The White House. If you are a private contractor with a related federal contract, such as with U.S. AID, you likely already received notice from your federal client advising you that there is no more work for you and no payments may be made until further notice. You may now have to deal with how to furlough your employees who were working on those contracts if you have no other work for them.
Executive Order Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing – issued January 20, 2025. This order mostly impacts the federal government as an employer. There is one directive that government contractors and grantees may no longer be required by any federal agency to maintain any DEI or DEIA performance requirements. It also directs the Secretary of the OMB to submit to the President within 60 days a list of all “Federal contractors who have provided DEI training or DEI training materials to agency or department employees.”
Executive Order Regulatory Freeze Pending Review – issued January 20, 2025. This EO directs all executive departments and agencies to not “propose or issue any rule in any manner, including by sending a rule to the Office of the Federal Register (the “OFR”), until a department or agency head appointed or designated by the President after noon on January 20, 2025, reviews and approves the rule.” As a result, I expect we may see less regulatory action such as from the DOL, NLRB, EEOC etc. addressing employment issues such as overtime, joint employment, workplace harassment, and more. For example, on January 31st the President issued another EO requiring “whenever an agency promulgates a new rule, regulation, or guidance, it must identify at least 10 existing rules, regulations, or guidance documents to be repealed.”
Executive Order Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions – issued January 20, 2025. This order rescinds at least 77 (!) Executive Orders issued under the Biden Administration.
Pause or Temporary Freeze on Certain Federal Spending. These rulings impact employers less directly as this EO applies to federal funding to the states. If you have any state contracts, you may be impacted. On Friday, January 28th, a judge issued a decision blocking this EO in response to a lawsuit filed by a number of private groups. This decision applied nationwide and is set to expire Monday, February 3rd when arguments are scheduled to be heard. Then on Friday, January 31st a second judge issued a separate decision also temporarily blocking the rule. This decision, however, applies only to the 22 states and the District of Columbia that filed a separate lawsuit challenging this EO.
Please consult with your company’s legal counsel of these matters. Click here for information on another EO and the U.S. EEOC’s related announcement on “Protecting Women in the Workplace.”
Stay tuned as developments unfold, new EO’s, and court decisions continue to be issued. Click here for an ongoing list of Executive Orders. Click here for the White House’s brief Fact Sheets on each.