Legal experts warn that Trump’s anti-DEI agenda is pushing companies to gut programs that actually help them comply with longstanding anti-discrimination laws.

This article was originally published by The Conversation.

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump and his administration have waged a war on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, including those of private businesses across the country.

Trump fired the first shot on Jan. 21, 2025—his first full day back in office—when he signed an executive order that denounced DEI as “immoral” and “illegal discrimination.” The order claimed that, under such policies, “hardworking Americans” were being “shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.”

A week later, Trump dismissed two Democratic commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that helps enforce workplace anti-discrimination laws. Because these officials were forced out years before their terms expired, their firing was arguably illegal. But it allowed Trump to dramatically shift the commission’s focus.

Andrea Lucas, named by Trump to be the agency’s acting chair, quickly announced a commitment to what she described as “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination.”

Since then, there’s been a steady drumbeat of anti-DEI statements from the administration and its supporters. But these proclamations fail to explain what is illegal about so-called “illegal DEI.” As professors and workplace law...

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