Trump's 1st 100 days targeted diversity policies and civil rights protections

The Republican president dismantles DEI policies, affecting federal and private sectors Critics say actions undo decades of hard-fought progress for marginalised communities

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US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office have featured an unapologetic assault on diversity and inclusion efforts, unraveling decades-old policies to remedy historical injustices for marginalised groups in a matter of weeks.

In his second term, Trump revoked a landmark 1965 executive order mandating equal employment opportunities for all, slashed environmental actions to protect communities of colour and ordered the gutting of an agency that helped fund minority and women-owned businesses.

Claiming diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives that became popular over the last two decades are themselves discriminatory and stifle merit, the Trump administration has also cancelled government contracts it says were tied to "illegal DEI," shuttered offices addressing civil rights violations and frozen research grants on racial disparities in healthcare.

The actions have alarmed advocates, who say they effectively erase decades of hard-fought progress on levelling the playing field for marginalised communities.

Hector Sanchez Barba, president and CEO of Mi Familia Vota, a nonpartisan organisation that mobilises Latino voters, criticised the directives as a “white supremacist's agenda.”

“He’s attacking the pillars that maintain and sustain our democracy — it’s going back to a horrible history of exclusion of minorities from many spaces in our society,” Sanchez Barba said.