Interior Employees Told How To Report DEI-Related Practices

A memorandum sent to all Interior Department employees, including those in the National Park Service, seeks to have the 70,000+ workforce report on "suspected DEI-related discrimination, retaliation, or related violations of the law..."

While observing diversity, equity, and inclusion in workplace practices once was seen as a way of leveling hiring practices, protecting minorities, and aiming for an inclusive workforce, the five-page memo essentially outlaws DEI practices across the department and its bureaus.

"We have eliminated (or are eliminating) any programs, practices, or policies labeled as DEI/DEIA that involve unlawful race-, sex-, or other protected-characteristic-based treatment in employment decisions," wrote Rachel M. Borra, Interior's chief human capital officer in the memo issued Wednesday.

The memo instructs employees who want to complain about DEI practices to report them to the U.S. Office of Special Council. Borra added that employees "generally have three years from the date you knew or should have known of the alleged prohibited personnel practice to file" a complaint, and so "complaints filed now can address any prior actions that fall within the three-year window based on your knowledge, including actions that took place in previous administrations."

Back in 2022 the Interior Department under President Joe Biden "established the first-ever Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) Council to incorporate these practices into the Department’s work across its many bureaus."

“The Interior Department has a unique responsibility to be a model for diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility. As we celebrate the diversity of our nation, we are actively seeking ways to create opportunities for traditionally underserved communities to enjoy increased access to and benefits of our public lands and waters,” said then-Interior Secretary Haaland. “By advancing equity across the Department – from our work to spur a clean energy economy and increase access to outdoor spaces to our contracting and employment efforts – we can create opportunities for the improvement of communities that have been historically underserved, which benefits all Americans.”

Some Park Service employees took exception to the memo and its aims.

"This leaked memo, sent to Dept. of the Interior staff yesterday, outlines further attacks on 'DEI' by instituting reporting methods to 'snitch' on inclusive staffing — in effect formalizing a policy-based roll-back of civil and accessible rights hard-won over decades. This memo and the policies behind it serve to enforce a very specific, homogeneous federal workforce under the fallacious claim that diversity initiatives are discriminatory," the Traveler was told Thursday by anonymous park rangers.

Borra said in her memo that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the section that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), and national origin, "applies equally to everyone — there is no reverse discrimination exception."

But the off-duty Park Service workers said Interior's effort to "weaponize" Title VII "is in direct opposition to the very spirit and intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and serves as another politicized re-writing of the Federal apparatus in order to institutionalize exclusion."

"As a group of off-duty National Park Service employees, we strongly object to this continued assault on staff and the American people," the rangers said.