US government employees were told to report DEI efforts or face ‘consequences’.

The Trump administration emailed thousands of federal employees on Wednesday, ordering them to report any efforts to “hide” diversity initiatives at their agencies or face “adverse consequences.”

The request comes after President Donald Trump banned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices and programs across the government.

The email, seen by the BBC, instructed staff to “report all facts and circumstances” to the new government email address within 10 days.

Some staffers interpreted this as a call for their colleagues to sell out the White House.

“We are really nervous and overwhelmed,” said a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) employee.

The Office of Personnel Management, which manages the federal workforce, issued guidance requiring agency heads to send a notice to their employees by 17:00 Eastern Time on Wednesday. It included an email template that many federal employees ultimately received that night.

Some employees, such as those at the Treasury Department, received slightly different versions of the email.

The Treasury Department email did not include a warning about “adverse consequences” for not reporting DEI initiatives, according to a copy shared with the BBC.

In one of his first actions as president, Trump signed two executive orders ending “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or “DEI” programs within the federal government and declaring any employees working in those roles . Be immediately placed on paid administrative leave.

Such programs are designed to increase minority participation in the workforce and educate employees about discrimination.

But critics of DEI, such as Trump, argue that the practice itself is discriminatory because it does not take into account race, gender, sexual identity or other characteristics.

Trump and his allies repeatedly attacked the practice during the campaign.

In a speech Thursday at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, Trump announced he was making America a “merit-based country.”

Critics of DEI have praised Trump’s decision.

Yukong Mike Zhao, president of the Asian American Coalition for Education, said, “President Trump’s executive orders repealing affirmative action and banning DEI programs are a major milestone in the progress of American civil rights and the rights of a color-blind society. This is an important step towards construction.” statement.

The group supported a successful effort in the US Supreme Court to overturn affirmative action programs in American universities.

But current federal employees, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity due to fears of reprisals, said the email they received seemed more an attempt to intimidate staff rather than make the government more impartial.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Trump has signed several executive orders since taking office, including a hiring freeze in the federal government, ordering workers to return to the office, and an effort to reclassify thousands of government workers to make it easier to fire them .

The HHS employee who spoke to the BBC criticized the government’s DEI practices, saying he believed it was important to build a diverse workforce and create opportunities in the health and medical fields, saying, “Identity politics has disrupted our normal has played a role in under-functioning and is not beneficial to the workforce”

The employee said, “But that doesn’t mean I want my coworkers to be fired.”

He described the impact of the emails and DEI orders on his agency as “pretty much calculated chaos.”

The staff division was thrown into confusion, he said, with questions about hiring practices going forward, as well as which programs and directives were allowed to continue, given Trump’s broad definition of DEI.

A second HHS employee said hiring and research grants have been put on hold and the entire department staff is waiting to see what they can do next.

HHS, and one of its supporting agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), issues millions of dollars in federal grants to universities and researchers around the world to pursue scientific research.

Agency employees feared that the DEI order could have ramifications beyond the government. One questioned whether grants that allow laboratories to create more opportunities to hire minority scientists and medical professionals would now be eliminated.

An employee working at the Food and Drug Administration told the BBC that she had not received the email, but that all DEI-related activities had been halted.

“Our seniors have told us to keep doing our work,” he said. “But there is a fear about what effect this is going to have on our work in general.”