
Gage Skidmore
Donald Trump at a podium next to the logo for the Wisconsin Depa
On Jan. 20, President Trump issued an executive order for federal agencies to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
It was not immediately clear what content — if any — would be scrubbed after several Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs websites were taken down Jan. 22 to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the federal government.
But now that the websites are back online, most visibly changed are several Department of Military Affairs policy pages related to equal employment opportunity, a federal policy meant to prohibit job discrimination. These appear to have been deleted, according to a comparison of archived web pages to the current site.
A Dec. 13, 2024, version of the Department of Military Affairs’ website includes a description of the No FEAR Act, a federal law passed by Congress in 2002 that requires federal agencies to post statistical data of whistleblower and employment discrimination complaints submitted by employees and applicants. That description does not appear on the current website.
A section for special holiday observances, such as Martin Luther King Jr. Day and LGBT Pride Month, has also been deleted. Additionally, a section for “special emphasis programs,” employment programs meant to address “professional development, advancement and training of underrepresented groups,” also appears to have been deleted.
Previously, the special emphasis section of the website listed programs for “affirmative employment,” disabilities, Hispanic people and women.
A 1987 U.S. Department of Defense directive establishing the department’s equal opportunity programs for civilian employees stated that equal employment opportunity programs help bolster the number of “minorities, women, and people with disabilities” across civilian positions in defense agencies. The directive described equal employment opportunity programs, including affirmative action, as vital to the department’s ability to protect national security.
When asked if Trump’s anti-DEI orders apply to the No FEAR Act or special emphasis programs, U.S. Department of Defense spokesperson Joshua Wick referred Isthmus to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
“We don’t have anything to offer on this,” says Wick, adding that “we would defer to OPM to share any guidance they provided to federal departments and agencies.”
A Defense Department official said through a spokesperson that the department plans to “fully execute directives” contained in Trump’s executive orders and ensure "they are carried out with utmost professionalism, efficiency and in alignment with national security objectives.”
“We will provide status updates as we are able,” the official said. A spokesperson for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management did not respond to a request for comment.
The state Department of Military Affairs, Gov. Tony Evers and the White House did not respond to repeated requests for comment. After the websites were taken down Jan. 22, a Department of Military Affairs spokesperson told Wisconsin Public Radio that the agency, which includes both federal and state employees, wanted to ensure its content adhered to Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order terminating DEI programs across the federal government.
The Department of Military Affairs and Wisconsin Emergency Management websites were back up on Jan. 23; the Wisconsin National Guard’s website did not come back online until Jan. 27. According to a Jan. 17 archived webpage, a heading on the Wisconsin National Guard’s website linking to the Department of Military Affairs’ equal opportunity page has also been removed.
Many federal and military agencies have rushed to scrub all diversity-related content from their webpages following Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order terminating DEI programs across the federal government, and his Jan. 27 order to end DEI programs in the military.
National Guard pages in such states as Iowa and Ohio have, as in Wisconsin, taken down pages related to equity and inclusion.
The Pentagon’s intelligence agency, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, made headlines on Jan. 29 for pausing its special observances and special emphasis programs. The Associated Press quoted an anonymous source who said the intelligence agency’s revocations appear “not to be policy across the Defense Department.”
Agencies are unsure how to proceed amid vague executive direction and congressional representatives are similarly uncertain. At a Jan. 30 press conference, Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan said “we just don’t know” how Trump’s anti-DEI in the military order will affect Department of Defense policy or trickle down to Wisconsin’s military agencies.
“Donald Trump's doing things that we think are unconstitutional, that he doesn't have the power to do,” Pocan said. “So how much do those get reversed?”
On Feb. 3, a coalition of professors and diversity officials, represented by progressive legal group Democracy Forward, filed a federal lawsuit alleging Trump’s Jan. 20 DEI executive order, and a Jan. 21 order targeting private endowments and federal contractors, are unconstitutional. The lawsuit argues the orders are overly vague and exceed Trump’s power as president.
“[We] are committed to working with communities across the nation to confront attacks on freedom of speech, diversity, equity and inclusion, and fighting back against Trump’s continued attempts to test the limits of targeting his political opponents,” Skye Perryman, Democracy Forward president and CEO, said in a Feb. 3 statement.
Open government and freedom of information advocates say the mass deletion of federal communications poses substantial risks to effective governance and the public’s understanding of federal programs.
“From information on standard government services to the countless troves of life-saving environmental and health data, the federal government has an obligation to preserve and make available this information — regardless of who is president,” said Ben Jealous, executive director of the environmental nonprofit Sierra Club, in a press release. The nonprofit recently began submitting Freedom of Information Act requests in response to takedowns of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Department of Energy data.