Sponsors (108)
Introduced February 4, 2025 by Michael Cloud · Last progress February 4, 2025
The bill trades reduced federal funding and compelled participation in DEI programs and clearer prohibitions on certain diversity initiatives for weakened institutional capacity to address systemic discrimination, increased compliance and litigation risks, and potential harms to students, employees, and underrepresented communities.
Federal employees and other workers/students will not be required to attend DEI, critical-theory, or related trainings, protecting individuals from compelled ideological training.
Taxpayers may see reduced federal spending because agencies, grants, and the Department of Education are restricted from funding DEIA offices and many DEI trainings or materials.
People with disabilities and others continue to have statutory EEO and ADA enforcement preserved, and existing enforcement offices remain funded under traditional nondiscrimination frameworks.
Students, racial and ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQ+ people, and other underrepresented groups may lose institutional supports, recruitment/retention programs, and agency capacity to address systemic discrimination across schools, federal agencies, and contractors.
State and local governments, federal agencies, nonprofits, and contractors face significant litigation risk and potential recurring statutory liabilities (including at least $1,000 per violation per day) and attorney-fee awards, which could encourage opportunistic suits and impose large financial burdens.
Agencies, grant recipients, and contractors will incur administrative and compliance costs from rapid wind‑downs, mandated rewrites of guidance/rules, contract language changes, and ongoing monitoring, disrupting operations and program delivery.
Based on analysis of 19 sections of legislative text.
Bars many federally funded or required DEI practices, offices, and trainings across agencies, contracts, grants, accreditation, and advisory committees, and requires wind‑down of covered programs.
Prohibits federal agencies, contractors, grantees, accrediting bodies, and advisory committees from using or requiring many diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, trainings, offices, or practices and orders federal agencies to close or wind down such programs. It adds a new prohibition into the Civil Rights Act, bans federal funding for specified DEI activities, requires contract and grant terms forbidding those practices, repeals or amends multiple statutory DEI authorities, and creates a private right of action with monetary penalties for violations. The bill sets short compliance deadlines (for example, 90 days to wind down affected agency offices and 180 days for OPM to revise guidance), preserves narrow exceptions for historically organized Equal Employment Opportunity and ADA enforcement offices and some institutional protections (including HBCUs), and authorizes courts to award at least $1,000 per violation per day plus attorneys’ fees and other relief to prevailing plaintiffs.