Exclusive: Inside the Biden EPA’s double down on DEI ahead of Trump’s return

Just days after the 2024 election, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) staff sought to double down on diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) initiatives, according to documents first obtained by the Functional Government Initiative (FGI) and provided exclusively to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Federal workers in EPA’s now-shuttered Office of Inclusive Excellence discussed the agency’s DEIA strategies with representatives from the research and advisory firm Gartner several times before and after President Donald Trump’s victory in November 2024, documents reviewed by the DCNF show. The Biden EPA discussed how to implement a “DEIA-centric work environment” with Gartner in September 2024 and sought to reinforce its DEI efforts after the election, sharing its agency DEIA models and strategies in the days and weeks following Trump’s victory, according to the documents.

“President Trump promised to end ‘DEI’ policies during the campaign. However, immediately after the 2024 election, unelected bureaucrats schemed to retain and even expand these discriminatory policies,” Roderick Law, FGI’s director, told the DCNF. “It is time to hold unelected bureaucrats accountable to ensure that they are not actively undermining the president’s directives and to end the dysfunction of divisive ideologies.”

EXCLUFOIADOCS DEI EPA by audreystreb on Scribd

The DEI ideology was deeply ingrained in the EPA’s makeup ahead of the power shift in Washington, as staff members prioritized DEI initiatives even after Trump’s victory, the documents indicate. Notably, one EPA staff member signed off several emails with the quote, “DEIA is not a task, it’s a mindset,” according to the documents.

EPA’s Office of Inclusive Excellence was shut down under EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin as part of his DEI clampdown, the EPA confirmed to the DCNF, though the agency did not confirm whether the staff members involved in the communications obtained by FGI are still employed at the agency.

Tyvonia Ward, director of the Office of Inclusive Excellence during Biden’s tenure, communicated with Gartner executive partner Bob Leavitt about the EPA’s DEI strategy in the weeks following Trump’s election, according to the documents. The discussion centered around “proactively leading through the transition with a focus on people” and a strategy that would involve “DEIA-related themes,” according to the documents.

Ward then emailed Leavitt the EPA’s DEI goals from the beginning of the Biden administration, which included ways to “strategically integrate DEIA goals [and] explore opportunities to achieve more equitable outcomes” and compensation policies to “advance pay equity across the agency.”

Law noted that FGI’s findings indicate “how deep the DEI rot went” in the EPA.

“This effort was an exercise in futility, yet it goes to show the lengths these unelected bureaucrats will go to ‘save’ DEI,” Law said.

Trump campaigned against the DEI initiatives that the Biden administration pushed for four years and has since made moves to end “radical DEI preferencing” in the federal government. Zeldin has also cracked down on DEI within his agency, including by announcing the elimination of over $1 billion in DEI and “environmental justice” grants and moving to cut numerous EPA offices that promote the ideology.

“We can’t speak to motivations of the Biden EPA. This seems like nothing more than an example of them doubling down on their radical agenda despite the resounding loss at the ballot box,” an EPA spokesperson told the DCNF. “As far as the Trump EPA, since January 20th we have followed the mandate given to us by the American people by diligently implementing President Trump’s executive orders. This includes terminating the Biden-Harris Administration’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion arms of the agency.”

Ward, Leavitt, and Gartner did not respond to the DCNF’s multiple requests for comment.

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