WASHINGTON — NASA is beginning to implement a White House executive order to terminate certain diversity programs at the agency that were once praised by its current acting administrator.
In a memo to employees Jan. 22 obtained by SpaceNews, NASA Acting Administrator Janet Petro said the agency was working to close offices related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) at the agency and cancel relevant contracts.
“These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination,” she wrote in the memo.
The steps, she wrote, are intended to implement an executive order issued by President Trump hours after his Jan. 20 inauguration. The order called on federal agencies to terminate DEIA programs and positions related to them, calling such efforts “discriminatory” and an “immense public waste.”
That was followed the next day by a memo to federal agencies by Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), directing them to remove “outward facing media” related to DEIA programs by 5 p.m. Eastern Jan. 22 and to place employees of DEIA offices on paid administrative leave.
The memo also requires agencies to provide lists of their DEIA offices and employees, as well as related contracts, by Jan. 23, and submit plans for laying off DEIA employees by the end of the month.
The website for NASA’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity returned a “404 Not Found” error message after the close of business Jan. 22. Some people reported the website was offline earlier in the day after being available in the morning, although for others the site was still available until late in the day.
Websites for similar offices at some NASA field centers also returned similar errors or were otherwise not available late Jan. 22. “Office Of Diversity and Equal Opportunity has been decommissioned,” stated the website for that office at NASA’s Langley Research Center.
Notably,…
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