Business Insider has found examples of government programs that contained keywords like "equity" — but that weren't actually related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives — that have been indefinitely paused after being flagged for review or, in some cases, cut entirely.
This comes in the weeks following President Donald Trump's executive order ending DEI initiatives.
One USAID employee told BI their program on helping people in sub-Saharan Africa "grow equity through savings accounts" was flagged to be reviewed by the DOGE office shortly after it began targeting DEI-related initiatives. The request for review happened prior to the widespread USAID cuts.
The USAID employee, now on administrative leave, said they believe the review was triggered because the program's name contained the word "equity," even though it was geared toward financial equity rather than anything DEI-related. Business Insider has verified the employee's identity and others who spoke to us on the condition of anonymity.
It felt like "they just used Control+F, or some AI did exactly that," they said. "My impression was it was them just being ham-fisted."
Another federal employee, whose primary job function is managing relations with private equity-held businesses, was placed on administrative leave "pursuant to the President's executive order on DEIA," per a dismissal memo reviewed by BI.
"My job has nothing to do with DEIA at all," the federal employee said, adding that they had attended DEI-related training, but such work was not part of their job description. BI reviewed a copy of the employee's job description and verified it did not contain any work tasks or priorities related to diversity, equity, or inclusion initiatives.
It remains unclear exactly why these two jobs were flagged to be cut.
Representatives for the White House and the DOGE office did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
Other DEI language
While it remains unclear exactly how the employees and programs were targeted for removal, Business Insider's reporting expands a growing list of cuts initiated by the DOGE office that appear to target terms like "equity" and "gender" even when used in contexts unrelated to their meanings in DEI frameworks. The USAID employee compared the nature of the cuts to a keyboard shortcut — find and replace — to target DEI-related language.
The Washington Post reported the DOGE office has fed sensitive data into AI software to identify programs to cut.
The Associated Press reported that references to the Enola Gay, the name of the Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, were among tens of thousands of photos and online posts marked for deletion as the Defense Department works to purge DEI-related content. The AP reported that it appeared the photos were flagged because of the word "gay"; the Enola Gay was named after a colonel's mother.
Per Bloomberg, a DOGE office review led to millions of dollars in canceled affordable housing contracts after their websites and social media posts were combed for terms linked to equity and diversity. It remains unclear what ultimately caused each of the contracts — which addressed homelessness, disaster recovery, and other housing issues — to be flagged.
Business Insider identified over a dozen removed pages of the Internal Revenue Manuals, the official staff instructions for members of the Internal Revenue Service. The pages previously contained notes indicating that their last update — made in response to a Biden-era executive order promoting equity — removed "unnecessary gendered language," such as changing the phrase "he or she" to the gender-neutral pronoun "they."
Business Insider's review of the manual found that the pages were removed after the Trump executive order went into effect. The update note contained the word "gender."
The Wall Street Journal reported that the IRS also removed pages from the manual about the "inequity" of holding on to taxpayer money longer than necessary and the "inclusion" of a taxpayer identification number on a form.
"I feel like this must be reactionary panic at the agencies," one tax attorney told BI about the pages removed from the IRS manuals. "This doesn't seem possible or legal in some cases."
DOGE office cuts reversed and rolled back
Trump said during his address to Congress last week that the DOGE office is being "headed by" White House senior advisor and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. (The White House has said that Amy Gleason is the acting administrator.) The office has been tasked with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government. But though the office has publicly celebrated its wins, it has quietly reversed some of its efforts and hedged its claims of cost savings.
Although not every cut has been permanent, Trump has cheered Musk on, saying he hopes the billionaire businessman gets "more aggressive" in his effort to slash federal spending.
Critics have lambasted the DOGE office and Musk for employing Silicon Valley's "move fast and break things" maxim rather than a slower, more targeted strategy.
The USAID employee whose equity program was flagged for review said they believed the program was likely permanently cut, along with the vast majority of USAID contracts cut through DOGE office efforts.
"The program was about increasing the impact-per-dollar in these developmental impact programs," the employee said, adding that they were making things efficient "in a measured impactful way."
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