The FBI confirmed to The Epoch Times that it shut down its diversity, equity, and inclusion office last month.
As the FBI has recently confirmed that it shut down its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) office, President-elect Donald Trump has demanded that the bureau preserve its records related to this decision.
DEI policies in both the government and private sector have come under fire in recent months, prompting some major corporations to shutter their offices and rescind some partnerships with outside groups. Critics argue that DEI policies are discriminatory and are political programs to advance a progressive, partisan orthodoxy.
A spokesperson for the FBI confirmed to The Epoch Times on Friday that its diversity office was shut down last month.
“In recent weeks, the FBI took steps to close the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI), effective by December 2024,” the spokesperson said.
The bureau, however, did not provide any other details about why it decided to shutter the diversity office, including what motivated it to do so.
The statement and reports about the FBI closing that office prompted Trump, who is due to take office in three days, to write, “We demand that the FBI preserve and retain all records, documents, and information on the now closing DEI Office,” which “never should have been opened.”
“Why is it that they’re closing one day before the Inauguration of a new Administration?” he wrote on his Truth Social platform on Thursday.
While on the campaign trail, Trump and then-vice presidential nominee JD Vance said they would work to remove DEI offices and related policies from the federal government. In an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan in October 2024, Vance said that some white children are becoming transgender in order to fulfill DEI requirements to get into some universities.
“The one way that those people can participate in the DEI bureaucracy in this country is to be trans, and is there a dynamic that’s going on where, if you become trans, that is the way to reject your white privilege?” Vance asked at one point.
