Despite recent news headlines that may have intentionally or unintentionally indicated otherwise, the federal government has not abolished all Affirmative Action regulations, and companies that were required to have Affirmative Action Plans prior to 2025 may still be required to maintain portions of those plans, at least for the time being.
Earlier this year, President Trump revoked Executive Order 11246 (“EO 11246”), a 1965 regulation that prohibited federal contractors and subcontractors from engaging in employment discrimination and required them to take affirmative action to promote equal employment opportunity for women and minorities. EO 11246 was a significant influence for other affirmative action laws and related initiatives in the sixty years that followed its implementation. One of the major requirements under EO 11246 was the obligation to implement an affirmative action program (“AAP”) and update the plan document each year, which historically has been a complex and expensive annual undertaking for federal contractors.
Key required components of an AAP included an organizational profile detailing the company’s workforce demographics, a workforce analysis to identify utilization of the four affirmative action categories (women, minorities, protected veterans, and individuals with disabilities), establishment of utilization goals in any job groups where such categories are underrepresented, establishment of action items to achieve such goals, specific recruitment and outreach strategies, and implementation of a monitoring and evaluation process to track progress and ensure compliance. EO 11246 also created the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance (“OFCCP”), which is the regulatory body that issues and enforces affirmative action rules for federal contractors and subcontractors.
The revocation of EO 11246 was one part of President Trump’s Executive Order 14173, issued on January 21, 2025 and colloquially dubbed “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” (“EO 14173”). Among other directives, EO 14173 made it unlawful for federal contractors to consider race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion or national origin in their employment decisions. It also ordered the OFCCP to immediately cease the following:
- Promoting “diversity;”
- Holding federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for taking “affirmative action;” and
- Allowing or encouraging federal contractors and subcontractors to engage in workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin.
In short, the above directives eliminated federal contractors’ AAP obligations relating to race and gender, and they halted any OFCCP enforcement efforts relating to the same. Going even further, EO 14173 directed federal agencies to require certification from federal contractors and grant recipients that they will not operate any illegal DEI programs. These and numerous other provisions of EO 14173 are explained in more detail on the official White House summary page for the order, which can be found here.
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