The Forum

On March 18, 2025, NPR revealed that the Trump Administration had issued a memo a month earlier ending a decades-long segregation ban on the facilities of companies awarded federal contracts. Segregation is still illegal nationwide under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other state and federal laws, but the action indicates a symbolic shift under the leadership of President Donald Trump. Since the beginning of his second term, Trump has been targeting regulations related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs as well as affirmative action. The memo, issued by the General Services Administration (GSA) on Feb. 15, says that the change is implementing an executive order issued by President Trump on the second day of his second term. The order rescinded an executive order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 that sought to ensure equal opportunities in employment, without discrimination by race, creed, color, or national origin, through affirmative action. Sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity were added to the rule later. Johnson notably also signed The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

Legal segregation lasted for more than six decades. The Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, which was decided in 1896, made segregation legal in all states and produced one of the most controversial phrases in history: “separate, but equal.” It bolstered Jim Crow laws, which were passed across the South after the Civil War, upholding their legality. However, in the 1950s and ‘60s, people of color made their voices heard to get the rights that they wanted for centuries. The Civil Rights Movement ushered in the downfall of racial segregation, Black Codes, and Jim Crow through sit-ins, boycotts, lawsuits, and eventually civil rights laws.