The administration of Donald Trump removed from the training of U.S. diplomats materials and training on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), including content on "white privilege," systemic racism, gender identity, non-binary pronouns, and Black Lives Matter.
The State Department announced this Thursday the end of those contents in the Foreign Service, after an internal review of the programs and materials used during the administration of Joe Biden.
The institution stated that it now intends to focus the training of its diplomats on "practical diplomatic skills", merit, rigor, and responsibility.
According to the institution, the priority will be to prepare diplomats to address issues of foreign policy, security, drug trafficking, illegal immigration, and threats from hostile governments, excluding DEI content from the training programs that the current administration deems unrelated to those functions.
The review found that a reading list intended for instructors included texts related to Critical Race Theory, including White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo; In Defense of Looting; The Case for Reparations; and materials on antiracism and humanitarian aid.
Trainings that taught Foreign Service officials to discuss concepts such as "white privilege" and "systemic racism" in other languages were also eliminated.
Among the examples cited by the State Department is a class in Bengali about Black Lives Matter, a discussion on systemic racism in Urdu, and exercises in Hebrew to incorporate terms related to that movement.
Another of the withdrawn documents was an inclusion guide that promoted the so-called "International Pronouns Day" and provided instructions for incorporating non-binary pronouns such as "Ze," "Zir," and "Zirs" into educational materials.
The review also found content dedicated to so-called "microaggressions," "unconscious biases," and "micro-affirmations."
The DEI policy also occupied specific spaces within professional training. According to the State Department, a day and a half of instruction dedicated exclusively to these matters had been incorporated into the five-week orientation course for the Foreign Service, in addition to a full day in a five-day program on the fundamentals of public diplomacy.
However, the changes extend beyond the classroom. Documents from the Biden era also included DEI objectives within evaluations for the professional advancement of officials, criteria that are no longer used under the Trump administration, as confirmed by the State Department to Fox News.
Among those guidelines was the instruction for diplomats to discuss with high-level foreign officials issues related to social inclusion, racial and gender equity, disability, and LGBTQI+ matters, as well as to demonstrate what the documents referred to as allyship and to proactively expand their knowledge on DEI.
The spokesperson for the State Department, Tommy Pigott, stated that U.S. diplomats must now focus on promoting the country's national interests abroad and not on demonstrating .
The institution asserts that its reforms aim to restore the importance of promotions and training based on merit and professional abilities.
The decision is part of a broader offensive by Trump against DEI policies within the federal government. Since the beginning of his current term, he has ordered the dismantling of government diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and to reverse Biden administration policies related to gender identity.
The measures adopted since January 2025 also established as federal policy the recognition of two sexes, male and female, and mandated the review of programs, forms, and government funds related to gender identity policies and DEI.
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