The Trump administration has blatantly resurrected segregation in federal contracting, undoing decades of civil rights progress by removing anti-segregation mandates.
According to reporting from NPR, employees from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were sent memos that states: “FAR 52.222-21, Prohibition of Segregated Facilities, and FAR 52.222-26, Equal Opportunity will not be considered when making award decisions or enforcing requirements.”
The regressive move reopens the door for racially divided facilities, reminiscent of the Jim Crow era, with potential “Whites Only” and “Colored” signage in government-funded workplaces. Nonetheless, under the current amendment, businesses will still be required to follow state and federal laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which declared segregation as illegal.
“This isn’t just a policy shift; it’s a moral catastrophe,” Melissa Murray, a constitutional law professor at New York University, told NPR. “We are witnessing the deliberate dismantling of civil rights protections that generations fought to secure.”
The changes, initiated without the customary public comment period, have been implemented to align with new executive orders on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). However, this sudden shift has sparked accusations of undermining democracy and transparency. An anonymous federal employee expressed outrage to NPR.
“This is an outright assault on democratic norms, a covert operation to reintroduce segregation without public scrutiny,” the unnamed employee remarked.
Other federal agencies in addition to NIH have received directives to disregard previous anti-segregation clauses in their contracting processes.
Inquiries to the General Services Administration about bypassing established procedural protocols were met with vague assurances.
“The GSA is committed to implementing executive orders effectively and promptly,” GSA spokesperson Will Powell stated.
Kara Sacilotto, an attorney specializing in federal contracts, pointed out the broad attack on civil rights, noting that the targeting of these protections extends beyond racial lines to include gender identity, previously expanded under the Obama administration.
“It’s clear the target is not just racial equality but all forms of civil rights progress,” Sacilotto explained.
Professor Murray added, “This isn’t just a rollback of civil rights protections—it’s a signal that we’re stepping back into a darker past, one that we’ve worked hard to move beyond.”
Thank u for writing about this. Everything u do in the dark always comes to light. And if poor whts think they’re safe. Ur not bc he won’t stop until anybody without a certain amount of land and money can’t vote either. This isn’t about just blks its about all of America.
Thank you for shining the light on these covert actions to overturn laws that protected peoples civil rights. Although troubled, I will not lose hope in Ameroca and its people. We will fight and we will win..my trust is in God and not man.
In 1903, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois penned the phrase: ‘‘The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line – the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea’’ (Du Bois 1994 [1903]. This is still the case in the 21st century, significantly, with the current presidential administration implementing its “Project 2025” agenda—the mid-term elections with the Democratic Party taking back both houses of the U.S. Congress will reverse this nightmare and hopefully create a major lame duck president going into the 2028 elections (of course this is wishful thinking). My fingers, toes, and heart are crossed!