This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at Balls and Strikes.
When President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, the national unemployment rate was at 4 percent overall, and at 5.3 percent for Black workers. On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its November 2025 dataset, and although the total unemployment rate is at 4.6 percent, the Black unemployment rate has soared to 8.3 percent — the highest level since August 2021.
One contributing factor is Trump’s mass firings of federal employees. Black people disproportionately work in the public sector, representing nearly 19 percent of the federal workforce compared to 13 percent of the civilian workforce. And they have been disproportionately impacted by Trump’s purges: Analyses by ProPublica and The New York Times found that the administration conducted its steepest staff cuts at the agencies with the most nonwhite and women workers, like the Department of Education and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
But the federal layoffs offer only a partial explanation. What the data is beginning to reveal is the devastating cumulative effects of the Trump administration’s policies for workers of color.
In January, for instance, Trump revoked an executive order that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed in 1965 which prohibited companies with government contracts from engaging in racial discrimination. Johnson’s order required contractors to “take affirmative action” to ensure that applicants are hired (and employees are treated) without regard to their race.
For decades, Johnson’s executive order helped increase the representation of people of color and white women. For example, a longitudinal study spanning from 1973 to 2003 found that the affirmative action initiatives increased Native American employment by nearly 4 percent. Another analysis of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data from 1978 to 2004 concluded that the share of Black workers at government contractors continued to increase even after a contract ended and the employer was no longer subject to the regulations.
Now, Trump is blocking that important vehicle for integrating the workplace, characterizing it as “illegal DEI,” referring to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Instead of requiring companies to take affirmative action, Trump is requiring companies to certify that they are not “promoting DEI.” The administration also did not define the term, effectively discouraging companies that want to keep their government contracts from engaging in any activity that could conceivably be characterized as DEI. For reference, to date, the things the administration has decried as DEI include the Calibri font and indoor plumbing in Black neighborhoods.
On top of trying to prevent people of color from entering the workforce, the administration is making it easier to kick them out. Since taking office, Trump has claimed to possess limitless power to fire executive branch officers for any reason, including reasons that violate federal antidiscrimination law. Earlier this month, former immigration judge Tania Nemer sued the Trump administration and alleged that Trump fired her because of her sex, national origin, and political affiliation. Before she filed a complaint in federal court, she filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, arguing that her termination violated the Civil Rights Act. But the DOJ dismissed her complaint, writing that as an “inferior officer” under the Constitution, Nemer’s removal was “beyond the purview” of federal equal employment opportunity laws.
“Article II of the Constitution allows the President and heads of departments exercising his power to remove inferior officers without cause, subject to only narrow exceptions that do not apply to your former position,” said the DOJ letter. “No statute provides otherwise, and even if it did, the statute would run afoul of Article II.” Quite literally, this amounts to a claim of constitutional power for the president to fire thousands of government workers who are designated as “inferior officers,” based on their sex, race, or on any number of other legally protected characteristics.
The Trump administration has had the opportunity to back away from this implication. Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Trump v. Slaughter, the case about Trump’s attempts to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission who enjoy statutory job protections. Justice Clarence Thomas directly asked Solicitor General D. John Sauer for an example of a permissible restriction on the president’s removal authority. Sauer provided none, because, he says, none exists. “We don’t believe there are permissible restrictions on principal officers of the United States who exercise the executive power,” said Sauer.
Now, the Trump administration is trying to dismantle legal structures that allow people of color to challenge discrimination in the workplace. Congress and the courts recognized decades ago that even policies which may appear neutral on their face can disproportionately harm people of color. Because of this, many antidiscrimination laws incorporate disparate impact liability, a legal framework that asks if a rule is disproportionately harming a group of people, and if so, if that rule is actually necessary. If it is not, courts can take action to stop it.
Yet last week, the Department of Justice announced that it would no longer enforce disparate impact liability under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits recipients of federal funds from discriminating based on race. Specifically, the rule would mean that anyone who receives DOJ funding — chiefly, local law enforcement agencies — would be free to engage in conduct that disproportionately harms people of color without worrying about Title VI enforcement action. In a press release, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon criticized disparate impact liability for allowing challenges to “neutral policies” without “evidence of intentional discrimination.”
This is wrong. What Dhillon’s analysis ignores is that disparate impact liability is the framework that allows courts to find out if a policy is indeed neutral, or if it merely disguises intentional discrimination. By limiting liability only to cases where there is open evidence of intentional discrimination, millions of people of color who interact with recipients of federal funds — whether applying for jobs, going to work, or just going about their lives — will be cut off from recourse for anything but the most obvious and explicit discrimination.
The Trump administration’s policies work in tandem. It is harder for people of color to enter the workforce. It is harder for them to remain in the workforce. And if they are victimized by illegal discrimination, it is harder for them to do anything about it.
Because of course this admin would act like this. How else can we return to 1950s America???
These people are awful.
Feature, not a bug. Yadda yadda. Rinse, repeat, Etc.
The one disagreement I have with the title of this article is “QUIETLY”.
Like much of what Trump does, there is nothing quite about it.
For example Donald Trump has modified every government contract to remove from the Federal Acquisitions Regulations (FAR) clause 52.222-21 titled “Prohibition of Segregated Facilities”. In fact at much expense to the Federal Government, he ordered all current contract modified unilaterally to remove that clause in existing contracts.
But in my view, blaming Trump is really missing the point and giving cover to the real problem in America, the American people.
That is Trump is only doing this because that is what his supporters want him to do. Trump supporters are more than willing to give up their healthcare and pay higher prices for everything and become poorer in exchange for keeping their racism.
For the entire history of America beginning with the Declaration of Independence when Thomas Jefferson’s first draft included a strong anti-slavery clause but had to be removed or else several colonies would choose to remain British colonies instead of forming a nation where all men were crated equal, there has been a conflict between American exceptionalism and White supremacy.
That is while Trump continues to enrich himself and in most cases enrich himself at the expense of the very people who support him, his base is more than happy to pay whatever price Trump and Republicans are charging because they hate Black people (although Trump supporters seldom say “Black people” when they think only like minded people are in the room) and others of color. Furthermore, this is not just a MAN thing as 53% of White women voted for Trump 3 times in spite of his attitudes and policies toward women.
The real problem is that those who support White (and I would add Christian) supremacy over American greatness have always been united and outspoken even when speaking in code while those who support American exceptionalism have been splintered and weak, afraid to offend anyone and often thinking if they just improve the lives of the White Christian nationalists they will change.
Most Republicans and Trump supporters are not going to change. In spite of all that progressive policies have given them, Trump supporters would rather give it back instead of having to sit next to a Black person on the bus. The only way to defeat this cancer in the American character I believe is to humiliate them by a united opposition speaking in plain language the truth about the racists and having policies that reward states that practice American exceptionalism and punish states that support White Christian supremacy.
I know racism exists but I am not sure it is the driver in modern American life that many upper middle class people on both the right and left believe. There are way too many interracial marriages for racism to be the driving feature of American life.
We Democrats have allowed Republicans to frame our world view exclusively around the historic problem of race. Maybe if we just focused on improving the lives of everyone in the middle class we could all get something done for the America.
You do realize that America is the only industrial nation without universal healthcare and our education system is falling further and further behind. . Allowing ourselves to be distracted by culture wars has meant that we never get anything done for the bulk of Americans. Maybe that is why the Democratic party is in the shitter.