Trump scrubs all mention of DEI, gender, climate change from federal websites

Meanwhile, the Internet Archive races to save what it can – again

Vast numbers of webpages have disappeared from federal sites in an effort to meet the deadline to implement the Trump administration's executive orders targeting diversity initiatives and gender.

Two of the 71 executive orders as of writing – "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing" and "Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government" – aim to roll back government fairness initiatives and to define biological sex, rather than gender identity, as the basis for identification in federal records.

Executive actions are not laws. They are directives issued by the President to federal agencies and staff, carrying the force of law within the executive branch but lacking congressional approval. Their legality depends on whether they are grounded in constitutional authority or statutory law. Some, notably a federal spending freeze, have already been blocked by court order, for whatever that's worth.

According to a New York Times analysis, more than 8,000 web pages across a dozen federal websites have been taken down to meet the Friday afternoon deadline.

The data includes around three thousand pages from the Centers for Disease Control, another roughly three thousand pages from the Census Bureau, plus material from the Office of Justice Programs, Head Start (a program for low-income children), the Department of Justice, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, and others.

It's also said while some other pages remain accessible, references to climate change, diversity, and other topics have been removed.

In one case, the result has been the removal of a passage about sexism in science from the online biography of astronomer Vera Rubin, for whom the National Science Foundation's Rubin Observatory is named.

The website on January 15, 2025, included this passage, currently preserved in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

Science is still a male-dominated field, but Rubin Observatory is working to increase participation from women and other people who have historically been excluded from science. Rubin Observatory welcomes everyone who wants to contribute to science, and takes steps to lower or eliminate barriers that exclude those with less privilege.

But that paragraph has been excised from the current version of Rubin's online bio.

The DEI/gender purge even reached the NSA's National Cryptologic Museum, which covered exhibits depicting the cryptographic work of women with brown paper until the ensuing outcry prompted a reversal.

In a contrite statement issued on Sunday, the museum said, "We are dedicated to presenting the public with historically accurate exhibits and we have corrected a mistake that covered an exhibit."

The National Cryptologic Museum did not immediately respond to an inquiry about why the displays were covered in the first place.

We've also heard, via a union official talking to NBC News, that dozens of Department of Education employees who attended a diversity training course during President Trump’s first term have now been placed on paid leave as part of the crackdown on DEI programs.

Dorothea Salo, academic librarian and faculty member at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told The Register we've been here before, citing how the prior Trump administration all but disappeared the US Environmental Protection Agency.

"That apparently made him happy enough to try to disappear half the federal government this time," she said.

"As happened last time, lots of citizens and citizen groups are rescuing what they can. It’s organically fairly decent preservation practice – the rescued work is being duplicated in widely geographically disparate places, which lowers the odds that sheer bad luck wipes it out. The difficulty is discovery – who’s got what data [and] where? If, as I hope, US leaders someday return to a belief that government transparency is important to democracy, putting the jigsaw puzzle back together will be a huge lift.

There is absolutely nothing good or useful in this ruinous vandalism

"My heart goes out to all the federal employees, contractors, and grantees, from scientists to records managers, who are seeing senseless destruction of their work. There is absolutely nothing good or useful in this ruinous vandalism."

Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive, said that about 28 years ago, Brewster Kahle had the idea to keep a record of the web.

"Every day since then, the Internet Archive has continued that tradition, working to do a better job of archiving and making available the archives of more of the public web," he told The Register. "Generally speaking, on any given day, we archive more than a billion URLs and make those available through the Wayback Machine."

The US government, Graham said, is the largest publisher in the world and every four years since 2008, the Internet Archive has come together in collaboration with partners to archive the material on government websites.

The effort has been in three phases, he explained: Before the election, between the election and the inauguration, and this weekend.

"We kicked off phase three after the election this weekend, where we do a deep dive and work to archive much material from more than 50,000 US government websites," he said.

Pointing to various reports on the online data purge, Graham said several thousand webpages, many related to LGBTQ and DEI topics, have been removed.

Historically, threats to libraries have included church and state. I think maybe these times we could add or maybe a more focus on lawyers and corporations

Asked whether he's concerned that the Trump administration might seek to have material excised from the Wayback Machine, given reports of focused efforts to alter information in Wikipedia, Graham said he's not aware of anything like that.

"I think the history of libraries is one of destruction," said Graham, pointing to the book The Library: A Fragile History. "Historically, threats to libraries have included church and state. I think maybe these times we could add or maybe a more focus on lawyers and corporations.

"I would say the Internet Archive is dedicated to our mission. Our mission is universal access to all knowledge. So we will work tirelessly to help advance toward our mission." ®

Elon-note

Elon Musk's puritanical purge of US federal government bodies he doesn't agree with has reached 18F, a digital operations team said to have worked on IRS Direct File, which allows taxpayers to file their returns direct, free, and electronically to the IRS. According to the billionaire, "That group has been deleted."