Biden Administration Executive Actions: Equity & Inclusion

Another early Biden Administration executive order rescinded various Trump Administration actions that attempted to push back against perceived “political correctness” by actions prohibiting trainings and other activities that touch on white privilege, structural inequality, implicit bias, and other supposedly “divisive” concepts based on decades of social science research. President Biden’s Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government goes beyond simply revoking the Trump Administration policies and instead sets a policy of actively working to improve racial equity government-wide. The Executive Order outlines a systematic approach for accurately assessing “whether agency policies and actions create or exacerbate barriers to full and equal participation by all eligible individuals” and identifying strategies to remove barriers. The Executive Order also establishes an Interagency Working Group on Equitable Data to be co-chaired by the Chief Statistician and the Chief Technology Officer and tasked with facilitating the collection of detailed demographic data on ethnicity, gender, disability, income, veteran status, or other key demographic variables in order to measure and advance equity across the government.

President Biden also signed several other Executive Orders intended to advance equity and inclusion, including orders prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation and combating bias against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.