WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is planning to disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among federal contractors for four decades, according to the White House’s newly proposed budget, part of wider efforts to rein in government programs that promote civil rights.
As outlined in Labor’s fiscal year 2018 plan, the move would fold the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, now home to 600 employees, into another government agency in the name of cost-cutting.
The proposal to dismantle the compliance office comes at a time when the Trump administration is reducing the role of the federal government in fighting discrimination and protecting minorities by cutting budgets, dissolving programs, and appointing officials unsympathetic to previous practices.
The new leadership at the Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, has proposed eliminating its environmental justice program, which addresses pollution that poses health threats specifically concentrated in minority communities. The program, in part, offers money and technical help to residents who are confronted with local hazards such as leaking oil tanks or emissions from chemical plants.
Under President Trump’s proposed budget, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights, which has investigated thousands of complaints of discrimination in school districts across the country and set new standards for how colleges should respond to allegations of sexual assault and harassment, would also see significant staffing cuts. Administration officials acknowledge in budget documents that the civil rights office will have to scale back the number of investigations it conducts and limit travel to school districts.
And the administration has reversed several steps taken under president Barack Obama to address LGBT concerns. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example, has revoked a rule ensuring that transgender people can stay at sex-segregated shelters of their choice, and the Department of Health and Human Services has removed a question about sexual orientation from two surveys of elderly Americans about services offered or funded by the government.
The efforts to reduce the federal profile on civil rights reflect the consensus view within the Trump administration that Obama officials exceeded their authority in policing discrimination on the state and local level.
Federal officials, following through on a pledge by Trump, have also drafted a rule to roll back a federal requirement that many religious employers provide birth control coverage in health insurance plans.
The mandate for free contraceptive coverage was one of the most hotly contested Obama administration policies adopted under the Affordable Care Act, and it generated lawsuits by employers that had religious objections to it.
On its website, the White House Office of Management and Budget said it is reviewing an “interim final rule’’ to relax the requirement, a step that would all but ensure a court challenge by women’s rights groups.
Material from the New York Times was used in this report.
