In a widely under-reported piece of devastating news. On Monday, Donald Trump signed an executive order revoking three previous orders issued by President Obama and affecting Executive Order 11246, signed in 1965 by President Johnson , including Executive Order 13673 or the “the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Order.” Signed in 2014, it required that companies receiving large federal contracts to demonstrate that they have complied for at least three years with federal laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender stereotyping.
Federal contractors will no longer have to prove they have been compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination based on sex in employment.
The Obama administration had argued that Title VII’s prohibition on sex discrimination includes sexual orientation and gender identity, a definition the Trump administration has been steadily moving away from. As Keen points out, the ADA and Rehabilitation Act are both of concern as they prohibit discrimination based on HIV status and other disabilities.
By nullifying EO 13673, “this administration has made it extremely difficult to enforce these federal laws as applied to federal contractors,” said Lambda Legal attorney Camilla Taylor.
“It’s sending a message to these companies that the federal government simply doesn’t care whether or not they violate the law.”
The 14 affected federal laws and regulations affected by the new Trump executive order also includes Executive Order 11246, signed in 1965 by President Johnson. Executive Order 11246 prohibited federal contractors from discriminating in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Four years later, President Nixon added discrimination based on disability and age. In 1998, President Clinton added sexual orientation. And in 2014, President Obama added gender identity, plus prohibited federal contractors, too, from discriminating against their employees based on these categories