Federal employees told to remove pronouns from email signatures; Trump executive orders cited
WASHINGTON — Employees at multiple federal agencies were ordered to remove pronouns from their email signatures by Friday afternoon, ABC News reported from internal memos at the agencies.
ABC reports that the memos cited two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office seeking to curb diversity and equity programs in the federal government.
"Pronouns and any other information not permitted in the policy must be removed from CDC/ATSDR employee signatures by 5 p.m. ET on Friday," a message sent Friday morning from Jason Bonander, the CDC's Chief Information Officer, read. "Staff are being asked to alter signature blocks by 5 p.m. ET today (Friday, Jan. 31, 2025) to follow the revised policy."
Federal employees with the Department of Transportation and Department of Energy received notice of the policy on Thursday. The memos also included instructions for how to edit email signatures.
Employees were told to remove pronouns from everything from government grant applications to email signatures across the transportation department, sources told ABC News.
Energy Department employees were told this was to meet requirements in Trump's executive order calling for the removal of DEI "language in Federal discourse, communications and publications."
The mandate to remove pronouns from email signatures is the latest result of the Trump administration's push to do away with diversity and equity efforts in the federal government, starting with a pair of executive orders calling for an end to what his administration called "radical and wasteful DEI programs" and seeking to restore "biological truth to the federal government."
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More recently on Thursday, Trump said that this week's helicopter and plane crash that left 67 dead near Washington D.C. could partially be blamed on the Biden and Obama administration's diversity, equity and inclusion policies.