The first 100 days of President Donald Trump’s second term have been a whirlwind of activity, punctuated by action at the border, tariffs, turbulent markets, DOGE, multiple lawsuits, and constant headlines. This Washington Examiner series, “100 Day Report Card,” will look at six key issues and how they have come to define the early days of this administration. Part 4 is on eliminating DEI.
This “war on woke” has been particularly prominent in the military, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth being one of Trump’s most zealous acolytes. The battle has also expanded beyond the Pentagon as educational institutions and businesses are being held accountable.
In Trump’s first 100 days, there have been successes and missteps in the battle to root DEI out of everyday life and restore “common sense.”
TRUMP’S FIRST 100 DAYS: WHERE THINGS STAND IN INITIAL MONTHS OF HIS SECOND TERM
Abolishing Pentagon and Homeland Security DEI offices
Trump signed Executive Order 14185 directing the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security to abolish every DEI office in the Pentagon. The order included DHS because it has purview over the Coast Guard. However, that effort began prior to Trump’s reelection.
A provision in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2024, which former President Joe Biden signed into law in December 2023, requires the department to make changes to its DEI workforce.
As a result of its implementation, the department abolished 32 DEI positions and restructured another 115 positions to reduce the DEI requirements of the posts, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office released earlier this month. Following those cuts, the DOD maintained 41 filled DEI positions, including 25 held by military officers and 16 held by civilians.
As a result of the executive order, the 41 positions that remained after the execution of the NDAA provision are not scheduled to exist after this month.
“We’ve said goodbye to the harmful effects of woke culture and so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs,” Hegseth said during an address at the U.S. Army College last week. “We’re removing DEI content, eliminating quotas, ensuring recruitment, retention, and promotions are based on performance, not immutable characteristics. DEI is dead at DOD. We’re building a merit-based culture that promotes and rewards individual initiative, excellence, and hard work.”
Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow with the Heritage Foundation who supports Hegseth’s mission, was hesitant to grade the department for this effort but ultimately gave it an “A.”
“I think, overall, this is a great thing that this is being done,” he said.
The DOD is comprised of almost 3 million people, including 1.3 million active-duty personnel, 800,000 service members in the National Guard and Reserve forces, and more than 800,000 civilians.
This effort has been much greater than simply getting rid of these positions. The department is also attempting to remove any references to DEI from its online and social media platforms, universities, and military bases across the globe.
“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have initiated consequential change amidst a generational fight against wokeness in the military, a fight that until recently, has been ignored even by conservatives. The boldness and precision of these steps are critical,” Gabriella Bucci, a spokeswoman for the group DOD Watch, told the Washington Examiner. “In Secretary Hegseth’s short time in office, he has rejected hollow and performative rhetoric and standards and has instead returned the military to a system of merit and equality unseen since the Truman administration.”
However, the anti-DEI initiative hasn’t been seamless. The artificial intelligence program the department has used for this effort has accidentally flagged people and topics that were inadvertent and ultimately reversed. In one instance, an article about Jackie Robinson, the World War II Army veteran who became the first African American to play Major League Baseball in 1947, was deleted. Other deleted content included references to the Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee airmen, and the Marines at Iwo Jima.
Merit-based recruiting and fitness standards
The Pentagon started a task force under the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness to oversee the abolishment efforts. It said on March 1, 2025, that the military services, the Joint Staff, and other DOD components certified that they are no longer using gender, race, ethnicity, or any other identity-based goals for organization composition.
Hegseth and other political appointees have said these efforts, in conjunction with Trump’s return to office, have been responsible for a recruiting bump, though that, too, started improving ahead of his term.
During the final full year of the Biden administration, recruitment across the military increased 12.5%, according to the DOD. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Space Force met their goals for new recruits last year as well, and anticipate doing so again this year.
Hegseth also ordered the standardization of fitness standards for troops regardless of gender.
“To be lethal, you have to trust that the warrior alongside you in battle or the troops fighting in the unit that many of you will lead are capable, truly physically capable of doing what is necessary under fire. You need to be fit, not fat, sharp, not shabby,” the secretary said.
HEGSETH CRITICIZES OVERWEIGHT RESERVE TROOPS: ‘FIT, NOT FAT’
More than two-thirds of Guard and Reserve U.S. troops are overweight, according to an estimate in a new study released last week by the American Security Project.
“After a decade of ill-conceived policy that attempted to create gender equity through inconsistent and conflicting combat physical fitness assessments, the Trump administration restored these critical physical evaluations to a combat-focused perspective, eliminating lower fitness standards for women in combat roles, a move which is critical to the effectiveness, safety, and lethality of our military on the battlefield,” Bucci added.
Targeting DEI and gender ideology programs in education
Through several executive orders and directives for Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Trump has targeted DEI and “woke” left-wing bias in educational institutions as well.
Tina Descovich, co-founder and executive director of education DEI watchdog Moms for Liberty, told the Washington Examiner that Trump “deserves an A for his decisive first 100 days, championing parental rights by protecting girls’ sports, reversing harmful Title IX expansions, dismantling DEI indoctrination in schools, and moving to eliminate the Department of Education.”
“His executive actions to stop woke ideologies in schools reflect the urgent demands of parents to safeguard our kids’ education and well-being,” she added..
The Trump administration cut over $100 million in DEI grants identified by DOGE, and threatened to pull Title I funds from schools that fail to eliminate race-based DEI programs in February. The following month, Trump signed an executive order prohibiting programs or activities receiving Department of Education funding from “advancing DEI or gender ideology.”
Despite Trump’s order, a recent report found that there are 243 universities, colleges, and schools with active DEI offices running 383 DEI-related programs. Twenty-six of these institutions have reportedly rebranded or renamed their offices or programs to evade the consequences of defying the Trump administration.
Trump has also cracked down on race-based hiring and opportunities in education, forbidding schools from doling out employment or educational opportunities in a racially discriminatory manner.
In March, the Trump administration launched investigations into over 50 universities for practices, programs, and scholarships that discriminate against white and Asian students.
Three judges last week blocked Trump’s effort to defund schools over their DEI programs. Educational institutions were supposed to certify compliance with Trump’s order in April, but the government cannot enforce the deadline until the courts clear the way.
Transgender athletes
In line with Trump’s Day One executive order “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” the Education Department is enforcing Title IX on the basis of biological sex, not gender identity. Trump also ordered that transgender-identifying biological males cannot participate in female school sports. The government has argued that forcing female athletes to compete against males is a violation of their civil rights.
Schools and state governments that do not comply with Trump’s directives on transgender athletes risk losing federal funding. Several government agencies got involved after Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) refused to comply with the order. The Education Department and Department of Agriculture pulled funding and launched investigations into the state’s Title IX civil rights violations, and the matter was recently referred to the Justice Department, which launched a lawsuit against the state.
The government has also been investigating K-12 districts and educational entities that allegedly facilitate “social transitioning” of children who identify as transgender. The Education Department is investigating districts accused of allowing faculty to refer to children by their preferred name and pronouns without parental consent or awareness.
The government argues that by affirming the transgender identity of young children, schools are denying the biological realities that there are two sexes, men cannot become women, and vice versa. A January Trump executive order prohibits the government from funding, sponsoring, promoting, assisting, or supporting children being “mutilated” through puberty blockers or irreversible transgender surgeries. The order came after studies showed the vast majority of children who question their gender “grow out of it” by adulthood.
Fighting left-wing campus antisemitism
Trump has also cracked down on campus antisemitism after physical and verbal anti-Jewish harassment skyrocketed following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack on Israel. Many of the incidents were related to fiery protests, facilitated by “woke,” self-described “anti-colonialist” left-wing faculty, and led to the arrests of thousands of students. On the 2024 election campaign trail, Trump vowed to defund universities that aren’t doing enough to curb antisemitism and that he would deport “pro-terrorist” foreign students.
GOVERNMENT CAN STEP IN AS CAMPUS ANTISEMITISM REACHES ‘DEFCON 1’: EXPERTS
Trump has followed through on that promise by revoking the visas of thousands of anti-Israel foreign students, arresting several, and attempting to deport them. However, these efforts are being challenged in court.
He has also pulled billions of dollars in funding from schools such as Harvard University, Columbia University, and other hotbeds for campus antisemitism. Trump has made several demands for the schools to regain their funding, including the implementation of a public mask ban and a stricter definition of antisemitism.
Native American school mascots
Another anti-woke fight Trump has jumped into is the effort to preserve school mascots that use Native American symbols. New York banned such symbolism, prompting a lawsuit from the Massapequa School District in Long Island. Massapequa High School uses the “Chiefs” mascot, which critics say is offensive due to cultural appropriation of indigenous people.
After the school publicly petitioned Trump to get involved, he answered the call and put McMahon on the case.
“I agree with the people in Massapequa, Long Island, who are fighting furiously to keep the Massapequa Chiefs logo on their Teams and School. Forcing them to change the name, after all of these years, is ridiculous and, in actuality, an affront to our great Indian population,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“LONG LIVE THE MASSAPEQUA CHIEFS!” he added.
Last week, the Education Department announced an investigation into New York over its policy banning Native American mascots, which the state argued undermines the Trump administration’s efforts to bring education “back to the states.”
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