The Impact of Race and Gender Affinity Groups on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the Federal Government

The Biden administration has launched a sweeping effort to embed the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda throughout the federal bureaucracy, leveraging race and sexuality-based employee associations to push for leftwing ideology within the administrative state.

Biden’s June 2021 executive order on “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in the federal workforce” ordered the bureaucracy to allow for the creation of employee resource groups. The groups, described by the government as “spaces where employees of similar identities can talk freely amongst themselves and come together based on shared identities,” were supposed to “eliminate” the “barriers to equity.”

It advertises several invite-only groups, including for Latinx, Working While Black, and even one called Not Your Dude, which is intended for “cis women, trans women, trans men, non-binary people, and those who are otherwise marginalized (i.e., non-hegemonic masculine folks).”

“Some groups are available by invitation-only,” a government website explains. “If you do not share that identity, show your allyship by respecting those private gatherings and giving space for people to gather and talk freely amongst themselves.”

The program has support from the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources division, which has hosted two government-wide summits on employee resource groups and affinity groups. OPM says the groups serve to “support agency efforts to strategically advance DEIA.”

At the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of the Interior, these newly-created identity-based employee groups have been used organizing hubs for leftwing bureaucrats.

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the top intelligence agency that oversees the CIA, NSA, FBI, and elements of the Pentagon, explained in a document obtained by The Daily Wire that affinity groups led a race-based leadership development program. The African American Affinity Network and the Latino Intelligence Network hosted a leadership summit where attendees “learned about unique opportunities at other agencies” and were invited to a workshop on building a professional brand.

The document also shows that employee resource groups within the intelligence community for those who are Asian or Pacific Islander have influenced how America’s intelligence apparatus refers to our foreign adversaries. The employee organizations “have been particularly successful in creating a new framework and language guidelines for how we talk about the People’s Republic of China,” the document obtained by The Daily Wire reads.

At the National Security Agency (NSA), there are 10 different employee resource groups, the majority of which are based on employees’ racial or ethnic backgrounds. “These employee-led groups are composed of individuals who work together to foster an inclusive and unified culture,” the NSA states. “Individuals may join ERGs as either a member or ally.”

The CIA’s Pride Employee Resource Group, for those who identify as LGBT, organized the Intelligence Community’s 2022 Pride Summit, which included sessions with titles like “Pride & Color: A Queer Person of Color Experience,” “Transgender Inclusion Training,” and “LGBTQIA+ & Disability.”

“LGBTQIA”+ employee resource groups from the U.S. Geological Survey, Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, Bureau of Land Management, and National Park Service held a panel discussion as part of a celebration of “transgender day of visibility,” The Daily Wire previously revealed. Federal bureaucrats were invited to watch a mini-documentary on LGBT representation in the field of marine biology.

The DOI and the agencies that operate underneath it have a long list of employee resource groups, like the Fish and Wildlife Services’ BIPOC ERG, which exists to “promote solidarity and support among BIPOC employees and allies; in order to harness our collective strengths toward creating positive, lasting change that advances justice, equity, diversity, inclusion.” There’s also the U.S. Geological Survey’s Pride ERG, which seeks to “assist in cultivating an inclusive and high-performing workforce that empowers all of its LGBTQ employees.”

The Department of the Treasury explained in its diversity and inclusion plan that employee resource groups would be leveraged to push DEI throughout the agency, meeting with bureau leadership “to identify methods to promote D&I throughout the organization. The National Institutes of Health similarly states that employee resource groups are used to facilitate “employee activism inside and outside the workplace.”

Employee resource groups and affinity groups are just one way in which the Biden administration is embedding the DEI agenda throughout the federal bureaucracy. The Democratic incumbent signed multiple executive orders institutionalizing the leftwing doctrine, and his federal agencies have even worked to enable gender transition attempts among government employees, barring the use of biologically accurate pronouns in the process.

While Biden has sought to further embed the DEI agenda within the federal government, former President Donald Trump has pledged to use executive orders of his own to purge far-left bureaucrats who may otherwise undermine his agenda. “We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the President of the United States,” Trump said at a rally, touting his plan. “The deep state must be brought to heel.”

Trump’s allies are preparing to fill the void left by outgoing bureaucrats, with the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 assembling a personnel database that could step into the administration in the event of a Trump victory.

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