Eliminate or weaponize: Weighing OFCCP’s future under Trump

For federal contractors that have been required to take affirmative action for women and minorities since President Lyndon Johnson signed Executive Order (EO) 11246 in 1965, the biggest question is whether President-elect Donald Trump will rescind the EO on January 20, 2025, or soon after. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 recommended he rescind EO 11246, which would eliminate not only the requirement that covered federal contractors prepare affirmative action plans for women and minorities but also the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) itself.

Incorrect view of Executive Order’s requirements

Project 2025 and many within the Trump transition team view EO 11246’s affirmative action requirements as “illegal quotas” and “set-asides” for minorities and women. What affirmative action critics and even some federal contractors don’t understand, however, is that affirmative action is based on the premise that “absent discrimination over time a contractor’s workforce, generally, will reflect the gender, racial and ethnic profile of the labor pools from which the contractor recruits and selects.”

In fact, the OFCCP in its regulations at 41 C.F.R. § 602.16(e), states that “quotas are expressly forbidden,” that “placement goals do not create set-asides for specific groups, nor are they intended to achieve proportional representations or equal results,” and that “placement goals may not be used to supersede merit selection principles.”

Revise and replace