yup.
The horror show continues.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/03/20/trump-segregation-ban-federal-contracts/
Trump’s new guidance doesn’t legalize segregation. Here’s what changed.
An order to federal agencies to drop a clause in contracts about ‘segregated facilities’ is largely symbolic, experts say.
What to know
Dropping that language in the contracts doesn’t change the fact that segregation is illegal in the United States. But the directive is still symbolic, legal experts say.
Here’s what to know about the change.
What does the GSA memo say?
The memo issued by the General Services Administration, first reported by NPR, directs civilian agencies to drop from new contracts and solicitations several provisions in the Federal Acquisition Regulation that it said “are not consistent with the direction of the President.” The FAR, as it is known, is the set of rules executive agencies use to write contracts for supplies and services.
One of the banned clauses prohibited contractors from maintaining or providing “segregated facilities,” including work areas, restrooms, restaurants and housing facilities, in any of its establishments. The clause also barred contractors’ employees from performing services where segregated facilities are maintained.
The GSA memo says these changes were made to ensure compliance with Trump’s Jan. 21 executive order calling for an end to “illegal discrimination” and the restoration of “merit-based opportunity.”
Stephanie Joseph, a GSA spokesperson, said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 remains law but “having additional duplicative regulations in the FAR places unnecessary burden on American companies from doing business with the federal government.”
“This is why reforming the FAR is such a high priority for GSA and this administration,” Joseph said in a statement to The Washington Post.
It’s unclear what the “unnecessary burden” was, given that, as the memo states, all American companies have been obligated to comply with existing U.S. laws on civil rights and discrimination. The agency did not respond to a request to clarify.
Sheryll Cashin, a professor at Georgetown Law with expertise in civil rights, said the GSA’s argument is “not plausible.”
“If you’re not engaging in segregation, there’s no problem,” she said. “People who are affirmatively or intentionally engaging in segregation ought to be burdened to consider their behavior and understand that it’s illegal, and stop it.”
Will this change have any practical effects?
The Civil Rights Act of 1964, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson, has been deemed to be among the most important pieces of civil rights legislation in generations. It outlaws discrimination based on race, color and other traits, including in voting booths, public accommodations, public facilities, public education and federally financed programs.
Trump’s directive to remove the explicit ban on segregated facilities in federal contracts does not invalidate this law. Instead, legal experts say, it’s a symbolic gesture that underscores how Trump is targeting long-standing antidiscrimination protections.
Deborah Archer, president of the American Civil Liberties Union and a professor at New York University School of Law, said that “like many of this President’s Executive Orders, the directive doesn’t have legal effect” because of the Civil Rights Act. But she said the action is still important.
“Even presidents who were hostile to the civil rights agenda at least understood that they shouldn’t say it out loud,” Archer told The Post in a message. “To have a President embrace a segregationist agenda is both dangerous and heartbreaking.”
The anti-segregation clause was also a reminder of the government’s duty to discourage discriminatory practices, Cashin said, which was important given its role in demanding and upholding segregation in the first place.
“There’s a part of it that’s performative,” Cashin said of the clause’s removal. “But it is deeply disturbing in that it’s moving away from what the civil rights revolution should have settled.”
How has Trump targeted antidiscrimination policies?
Trump has directed cuts to diversity and inclusion efforts since he was sworn in, immediately revoking several Biden-era executive orders aimed at preventing discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation. Trump also rescinded a civil rights-era executive order from Johnson that prohibited discrimination in federal contracts.
Trump has since continued to target diversity efforts in and outside the federal government. His officials have started dismantling offices in federal agencies that enforce civil rights and antidiscrimination laws. The Department of Education is investigating dozens of universities for engaging in what it called “race-exclusionary practices” or “race-based segregation.” Trump’s directives have also incentivized private companies to ditch their representation goals or diversity requirements.
'Segregated facilities' are no longer explicitly banned in federal contracts
After a recent change by the Trump administration, the federal government no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms and drinking fountains.
The segregation clause is one of several identified in a public memo issued by the General Services Administration last month, affecting all civil federal agencies. The memo explains that it is making changes prompted by President Trump's executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion, which repealed an executive order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 regarding federal contractors and nondiscrimination. The memo also addresses Trump's executive order on gender identity.
While there are still state and federal laws that outlaw segregation and discrimination that companies need to comply with, legal experts say this change to contracts across the federal government is significant.
"It's symbolic, but it's incredibly meaningful in its symbolism," says Melissa Murray, a constitutional law professor at New York University. "These provisions that required federal contractors to adhere to and comply with federal civil rights laws and to maintain integrated rather than segregated workplaces were all part of the federal government's efforts to facilitate the settlement that led to integration in the 1950s and 1960s.
"The fact that they are now excluding those provisions from the requirements for federal contractors, I think, speaks volumes," Murray says.
Deleted mentions of drinking fountains, transportation, housing
The clause in question is in the Federal Acquisition Regulation, known as the FAR — a huge document used by agencies to write contracts for anyone providing goods or services to the federal government.
Clause 52.222-21 of the FAR is titled "Prohibition of Segregated Facilities" and reads: "The Contractor agrees that it does not and will not maintain or provide for its employees any segregated facilities at any of its establishments, and that it does not and will not permit its employees to perform their services at any location under its control where segregated facilities are maintained."
That clause has been in government contracts for decades — at least as far back as President Reagan, according to this digitized 1983 issue of the Federal Register.
The current version of the clause, last updated in 2015, defines segregated facilities as work areas, restaurants, drinking fountains, transportation, housing and more — and it says you can't segregate based on "race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin."
Several federal agencies, including the departments of Defense, Commerce and Homeland Security, have notified staff who oversee federal contracts that they should start instituting these changes.
A recent notice from the National Institutes of Health shows that the change is already in effect. The notice, regarding a maintenance agreement for scientific freeze dryers, cites the GSA memo and reads, "FAR 52.222-21, Prohibition of Segregated Facilities and FAR 52.222-26 — Equal Opportunity will not be considered when making award decisions or enforce requirements."
To be clear, all businesses — those that have government contracts and those that do not — still need to follow federal and state laws, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which makes segregated facilities illegal.
In effect immediately
One federal worker who works on contracts says they were "shocked" when they received notice about the FAR changes from their agency. NPR has agreed not to identify the worker because they fear being fired for speaking to the media without authorization.
They said that the process used to institute these changes, without a typical public notice or comment period of 30 to 60 days, is usually reserved for urgent matters or national emergencies. The FAR's rules explain that this public comment period is required for any "significant revision."
"The way that they're implementing this in the contracting field is essentially subverting democracy — you're supposed to allow agencies to comment on this, contracting officers to comment on it, and think through the implications carefully," the worker said. "By doing this, they're essentially ramming things through hoping no one's going to notice."
In a statement, General Services Administration spokesperson Will Powell wrote: "GSA has taken immediate action to fully implement all current executive orders and is committed to taking action to implement any new executive orders."
After this story published, Powell sent NPR an additional statement defending the process GSA used to implement the changes without a public comment period as "common practice and permissible, not only used for emergency circumstances."
"We are moving at the speed of need to quickly undo the damaging policies of the past administration," Powell wrote. He added that "the Civil Rights act of 1964 must still be followed" and suggested that this clause was duplicative of that law, and removing it was part of an effort by the GSA to "streamline" the FAR.
Recent history
Kara Sacilotto, an attorney at the Wiley law firm in Washington, D.C., which specializes in federal contracts, speculates that the provision was flagged because it was revised under the Obama administration to include "gender identity." That change was made, she says, "to implement an Obama era Executive Order 13672, and that executive order from the Obama administration is one of the ones that President Trump, in his second term, rescinded," she explains. "And so, along with [Trump's] other executive orders about gender identification, I would suspect that is the reason why this one got identified on the list."
The memo does not say to exclude just the "gender identity" part of the clause, however. It says to exclude the whole thing.
Murray, the law professor, says racial segregation is not as far away in history as it may seem. She remembers a trip to Washington, D.C., in 1985, when her father, a Jamaican immigrant, took her to Woodward & Lothrop, a department store where he had worked when he'd been a student at Howard University.
She'd thought he had been a salesman at the store, which closed in 1995. "He's like, 'No, no, no, I only worked in the back because Black people weren't allowed to be on the sales floor,'" she recalls. When it comes to segregation in America, she says, "it's not far removed at all."
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-removes-ban-segregated-facilities-federal-contracts-2025-03-19/
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