The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the State Department called out practices under the Biden administration that required diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts to account for 20% of performance evaluations for foreign service officers.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the reforms of the Biden administration’s DEI policies ‘important and historic.’
‘Now our incredible Foreign Service Officers will be evaluated on true merit, not on arbitrary immutable characteristics,’ he wrote on X.
Rubio shared a post from DOGE, which noted that under the policy, diplomats were assessed on whether they avoided ‘gendered adjectives’ or ‘faint praise.’
The department shared PowerPoint slides providing examples of phrases to avoid.
One of the slides gave descriptive phrases that can unintentionally influence a reader. It then gave examples of gendered adjectives like, ‘Dr. Sarah Gray is a caring compassionate physician’ vs. ‘Dr. Joel Gray has been very successful with his patients.’
Faint praise was also discouraged. One example the slide provided was, ‘S/he worked hard on projects that s/he was assigned’ or ‘S/he has never had temper tantrums.’
The slides discouraged using first names for women or minorities and titles for men, as well.
Additionally, as DOGE pointed out in its post, the slides asked local organizations to promote diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) programs, training and lectures as well as annual DEIA awards ceremonies.
The foreign service officers were also encouraged to set race and gender quotas on embassy speaking panels and other diplomatic events.
‘Working with DOGE, [Secretary Rubio] has ended this discrimination and restored merit to the foreign service,’ DOGE wrote.
The elimination of the DEIA requirement on performance evaluations for foreign service officers comes a week after the Trump administration slashed $15 million from the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the form of DEI grants to align with DOGE and President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at eliminating DEI from the federal government.
The grants include $6.7 million to the California State Library to enhance equitable library programs and $4 million to the Washington State Library for diverse staff development and incarcerated support.
A $1.5M DEI grant to the Connecticut State Library system to ‘integrate social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion’ into their daily operations is also being cut along with $700,000 for a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit to study ‘post-pandemic DEI practices’ in American children’s museums that would formulate ‘enhanced equity-focused strategies.’
Trump’s DOGE efforts have saved the American taxpayer $140 billion, according to its website, which represents about $870 saved per taxpayer.
The Trump administration says it has slashed hundreds of millions of dollars in DEI contracts, including at least $100 million at the Department of Education.
Fox News Digital’s Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.