WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has ordered that all US government staff working on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) schemes be put on immediate paid administrative leave.

The White House confirmed that all federal DEI workers had to be put on leave by 17:00 EST (22:00 GMT) on Wednesday, before the offices and programs in question were shut down.

In an executive order issued on Tuesday, Trump also called for an end to the "dangerous, demeaning and immoral" programs.

It is unclear how many people are affected by the order, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), which represents 800,000 federal workers, said.

Since his inauguration, the president has acted swiftly on a number of key pledges through a raft of unilateral actions.

He repeatedly attacked DEI practices on the campaign trail, arguing that they were discriminatory.

In his inaugural address, Trump pledged to "forge a society that is color-blind and merit-based".

DEI programmes aim to promote participation in workplaces by people from a range of backgrounds.

Their backers say they address historical underrepresentation and discrimination against certain groups including racial minorities, but critics say such programs can themselves be discriminatory.

On Tuesday, a memo was sent from the US Office of Personnel Management to the heads of government agencies, instructing them to place DEI employees on leave.

The memo had a number of requests, including the removal of public websites for DEI offices.

By Thursday, federal agencies must compile a list of DEI offices and workers. By 31 January, agencies must submit "a written plan" for executing lay-offs in DEI offices.

Trump's executive order, meanwhile, took aim at what it called the "illegal" policies of DEI and DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility), framing them as being in opposition to US law.

It said these policies had the capability to "violate" important underlying civil rights laws that protect Americans from discrimination.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the move "is another win for Americans of all races, religions, and creeds", and fulfils a campaign promise made by Trump.

The executive order requires federal hiring, promotions and performance reviews "reward individual initiative" rather than "DEI-related factors".

It also requires the US attorney general to submit, within 120 days, recommendations "to encourage the private sector" to end similar diversity efforts.

And the order revokes a civil rights era executive order, signed by former President Lyndon B Johnson, that makes it illegal for federal contractors to discriminate on the basis of "race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin" when hiring.

It also required them to take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity during employment.

Revoking that order will have ripple effects in the federal and private sector, said Alvin Tillery, a political scientist and co-founder of the 2040 Strategy Group, which does DEI training in the private sector.

He said that theoretically, a company with only white employees that now refuses to hire black people, or Latinos, or women, for example, "can go for a federal contract without showing that your processes are compliant" with federal diversity standards.

It could also eliminate training programmes aimed at curbing discrimination or reinforcing positive behaviour, critics say.

"People are going to be ill-informed about what discrimination is and what it looks like," said Les Alderman, a DC-based civil rights lawyer who represents federal and congressional workers.

"Good-hearted people are going to be wrong about some things that we do and it is going to have consequences."

Unions representing federal employees have condemned Trump's executive orders.

The AFGE argues that diversity programmes have reduced gender and racial pay disparities in the federal workforce.

AFGE national president Everett Kelley said in a statement that removing the programmes serves to undermine "the merit-based civil service and turn federal hiring and firing decisions into loyalty tests".

The order was "designed to intimidate and attack non-partisan civil servants", said National Federation of Federal Workers national president Randy Erwin.

Tuesday's executive order comes on the heels of a related one signed by Trump on Monday.

That one declares that all DEI offices, positions and programmes be terminated within 60 days, "to the maximum extent allowed by law".

Among the roles targeted for elimination are "chief diversity officer" and "environmental justice" positions.

Several large US companies have ended or scaled back their DEI programmes in recent weeks, including McDonald's, Walmart and Facebook parent company Meta.

Others, like Apple and retailers Target and Costco, have publicly defended their DEI programmes.

Tillery said that, while he believes the former Biden administration's effort to add DEI positions across government was well intentioned, it did not meet its goals.

"The DEI jobs were underfunded, understaffed, the people doing the work were heroes with very few resources," he said. "But now we're going to go to zero." — BBC