Trump has revoked the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1965. Dad was Director of Civil Rights at EOC [View all]

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His order revokes one signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 that prohibited discriminatory practices in hiring and employment in government contracting.

President Trump on Wednesday revoked a 60-year-old executive order banning discrimination in hiring practices in the federal government, his latest action aimed at gutting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

His order, which the White House called “the most important federal civil rights measure in decades,” revokes Executive Order 11246 signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. It prohibited discriminatory practices in hiring and employment in government contracting and asserted the government’s commitment to affirmative action.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/us/politics/trump-order-discrimination-federal-hiring.html

side note: My father rose to Director of Civil Rights at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

It was in 1963 where President Kennedy is introducing the Dr. King-inspired Civil Rights bill of his to a divided Congress that my dad was hired as an Employee/Management Relations Specialist in the Office of Undersecretary of the Army overseeing and processing complaints that passed through the Army Policy and Grievance Board.

When the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, Dad had been promoted to a Personnel Staffing Specialist, Chief of Employee Services Section, at NASA, with responsibility for managing equal employment, mentally ill, and affirmative action programs; along with responsibility for recruiting and outreach.

By 1966, he was NASA's 'principle action,' Equal Opportunity Employment Specialist for the Federal Government, and assisted in the implementation of Kennedy and Johnson's 'affirmative' action-based Executive Orders, 10925 and 11246.





By 1967, he had advanced to the U.S Civil Services Commission, assisting in developing general and special inspection plans for employer compliance with affirmative action laws and participating in EEO reviews.

In 1968, after being a rare bird in the Judge Advocate General's School and completing its International Law course, he was, simultaneously appointed Deputy Chief, Placement at the Office of Economic Opportunity Personnel and Job Corps. The remnants of the OEO that were reorganized into the Department of Health and Human Services. were the last vestiges of Sargent Shriver's hopes and dreams which Nixon had dismantled and tried to underfund and eliminate.



The next year, he was was moved to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a senior consultant top legislative officers of state, local governments, and private industry in providing ways to implement Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

By 1970, he was promoted to a position as Deputy EEO Officer, responsible for implementing and evaluating a program of equal employment opportunity for employees of the Public Health Service hospitals, clinics, and major health services divisions.

Later, as Deputy Director of OEEO and HSMHA in 1972, Dad would direct the implementation and administration of affirmative action, upward mobility programs, and the processing of the Federal Women's and the Spanish-Speaking Program which had also been folded under EEO's mantle. This was the period where EEO had been granted actual authority to file lawsuits against violators. In the past, those cases were processed and prosecuted by the Labor Dept., with EEO merely providing friend-of-the-court briefs in support or opposition.

Dad took advantage of this period to play 'Lawrence of Arabia' and leave his paperwork-laden office and go out in the field to bonk some heads. He'd take a sheaf full of the new regs and new authority and put on his best angry administrator face for the code violators and abusers he encountered along the way. Not to diminish the effect of the enforcement ability afforded EEO, there were several landmark cases which were quickly prosecuted by the government and won.

Major Dad recieved his commission to Lieutenant Colonel in 1981. One year after that promotion, LTC Dad was assigned by the U.S. Army as an Education and Training Officer, providing support and assistance to U.S. Army Race Relations/Equal Opportunity Staff in preparation and presentation of the Unit RR Discussion Leader Course.

In a validating review by his commander, of his new promotion and new 'race relations' assignment, LTC Dad was described as 'diligent' and 'exemplary' in the performance of his duties. "His background as Director of Equal Opportunity for the Department of Health, Education and Welfare enabled him to greatly assist First U.S. Army in establishing the Unit Race Relations Discussion Leaders Course," the recommendation read.

He was serving as Acting Director of OEEO and the Health Services Administration from August 1973 to September 1974. Next, he would serve as Special Assistant to the Administrator for Civil Rights, and then, as Director of the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity.





That's the long and short of Dad's military and public service. He advanced in the military and the government -- almost Gump-like in his relative obscurity; an uncomfortable aberration in the images capturing the racial make-up of his peer groups -- working to elevate and implement so many of the ideals and initiatives contained in the civil rights legislation that Martin Luther King Jr. and others fought for; working to implement the orders and initiatives from two successive presidents determined to make the 'Great Society' programs a reality (and Nixon, curiously providing the first actual governmental language), and serving as administrator for the inevitable outgrowths and expansions of those initiatives into the federal workforce and beyond; recruiting countless African Americans into the federal workforce, in his time, and providing some of the early backbone for the nation's new impetus in the hiring and advancement of blacks in government.

Most interesting to me, is that image after image shows the extent that, in those early days, he was usually, either the only black official in the rooms where important decisions were made concerning equal employment and other vestiges of the Civil Rights Act; or he was one of just a few.





...it's not just sad to see his legacy so callously discarded by this inveterate demagogue seeking to bastardize the meaning of discrimination to protect and preseve the remnants and vestiges of a disgustingly cruel era where my welfare and opportunities in this nation, and those of my father and family hung on this Executive Order from 1965 to protect us from the self-interested domination over our lives by racist bigots like Donald Trump.

It's a broken agreement which served to quell much of the protest and resistance to government from the black community in 1965 after many of them became mired in riots and civil unrest, protesting decades of Jim Crow racism locking so many out of jobs and opportunity.

But the diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI) many businesses heve adopted aren't the 'affirmative action' in the EEO Act which was basically outlawed by the courts years ago. DEI in the workplace can be a mix of employee training, resource networks and recruiting practices. That's it. Some meetings with employees and a video.

Among seven DEI experts and industry leaders CNN has interviewed, most had a shared vision for what constitutes the concept:

Diversity is embracing the differences everyone brings to the table, whether those are someone’s race, age, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability or other aspects of social identity.
Equity is treating everyone fairly and providing equal opportunities.
Inclusion is respecting everyone’s voice and creating a culture in which people from all backgrounds feel encouraged to express their ideas and perspectives.

What Trump has done in revoking the 1965 Act is to dissolve decades and decades of leadership from the federal government which forced the rest of the nation's employers to respect the rights of my father and me.

This is sad and poignant reminder of just how tenuously my own rights to work and opportunity have been defended in this country since shortly after my birth in 1960; my dad working an entire career to make good on the promises John Kennedy made right before he was killed; what Johnson made certain became the practice of the land, all undone by one ignorant man determined to roil our nation's history and democracy.

End.