OPM memo orders agencies to place all DEIA staff on administrative leave immediately

The Office of Personnel Management issued a government-wide implementation memo the day after Executive Order 14151, instructing all federal agencies to place DEIA staff on paid administrative leave pending review and to identify any DEI-related work that had been relabeled or embedded in other agency functions. The memo gave agencies a 48-hour window to notify employees in DEIA roles. Staff at the Department of Defense, Department of Education, the National Institutes of Health, and dozens of other agencies went on leave within days. The memo also directed agencies to report any programs that administrators believed were continuing DEI activities under different names, creating an internal surveillance mechanism for ideologically flagged work. Scientists and program officers who had worked on equity-focused research initiatives found themselves excluded from their offices and cut off from their email accounts.