Trump’s latest blow to DEI: Government workers ordered to remove pronouns from email signatures by 5 p.m. Friday

In a push to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the government, the Trump administration ordered federal employees at multiple agencies to remove gender pronouns from their email signatures by 5:00 p.m. ET on Friday, according to internal memos obtained by ABC News.

Those agencies include, but are not limited to, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Department of Transportation (DOT), Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and Department of Energy (DOE), according to ABC.

The memos are said to reference two executive orders President Donald Trump signed on day one of his second term, seeking to gut DEI at government agencies and in its programs.

“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,” Jason Bonander, the CDC’s chief information officer reportedly wrote. “Staff are being asked to alter signature blocks . . . to follow the revised policy.”

On Thursday, the DOT employees received the memo while scrambling to respond to Wednesday’s deadly crash of an American Airlines jet that collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter near D.C.’s Reagan National Airport, plunging into the Potomac River and killing all 67 people on board plus three in the helicopter.

These directives come a week after Trump ordered all federal DEI staff to be put on leave, calling diversity and inclusion programs “discrimination.”