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Feeling Targeted: Executive Order Ending Wasteful DEIA Efforts
- griomnib 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- trhway 2y agoI’m wondering/surprised about the A being piled in - isn’t accessibility a law? I remember doing a11y work long before DEI, and it wasn’t a political issue.
- moontear 2y agoThe article states exactly that: still a law
- conductr 2y agoYes but I think the political climate is such that laws are all now subjective and could be tossed aside at a whim by any executive action and follow on rulings that would side with it. In any case, could be a long period of limbo while we “decide” what each law even means to those in power. So with that, what does something being a law even mean right now?
- buckle8017 2y ago[flagged]
- davkan 2y ago> Blame them. No I’m going to blame the people reducing accessibility for disabled Americans via executive order.
- smashah 2y agoSmart move. Blame the ones with the power doing the action. What a novel concept in this day and age. Thank you.
- tomlockwood 2y agoYou got a single verifiable example of this?
- anonfordays 2y agoYes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42828004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42828004
- freejazz 2y agoI find it interesting that this use of racism is passed off without concern but it would be uncool to call someone here a racist. I don't really see the difference. All that being said, they seem like similar principles to me, but I'm not the one throwing around what's racist, and based on your use of it, I guess you'd disagree.
- smashah 2y agoThe venn diagram of racists and ableists is 1 single egg.
- griomnib 2y ago[flagged]
- dang 2y agoPlease don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. Also, you crossed badly into personal attack here. Please don't do that on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. You may not owe people who you feel are losers better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- griomnib 2y agoThat’s fair, you’re right. In my defense, I’ve been advocating for accessibility in computing for over 20 years, and reading the original post really enraged me as it goes against all I stand for, hence reacting too strongly here.
- dang 2y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- buckle8017 2y agoThe federal bureaucracy has been making moves for months to prevent Trump from effectively changing policy[0]. Moving ADA protected accessibility concerns into the literal DEI departments (I don't mean individual people) is clearly part of that attempt to "harden" themselves from executive orders and top down policy changes. Indeed the ATF has just blatantly violated the executive order ending DEI programs[1]. Ultimately it's the bureaucracy using accessibility as a shield who are responsible for it being attacked. What I say is certainly... pithy but I take exception with saying any of it is un-substantive or flamebait. [0] https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/22/politics/resistance-trump-liberal-groups/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/22/politics/resistance-trump-lib... [1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/atf-accused-of-circumventing-trump-order-to-place-dei-staff-on-paid-leave/ar-AA1xNG2J https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/atf-accused-of...
- dang 2y agoYou didn't include any of that information above—you just made a denunciatory flamewar comment. That's what we're asking you not to do. If you had posted this later comment originally, it would have been fine, or almost fine—it's probably still too much of a political battle post to be completely fine.
- viraptor 2y agoIt's very likely that there will be court cases soon trying to figure out what does this actually mean in practice. (The gov itself has a month to figure out what it means in the first place) I mean, apart from the performative cruelty and defining a minority outgroup to be angry at. But yeah, accessibility is supposed to be required for government properties, by various laws.
- tomlockwood 2y agoI think there's a big difference between something being a law and there being anyone around to implement that law, and indeed, there being a government department or regulator checking the law is being followed. There won't be anyone doing any of that.
- foota 2y agoI believe the government would be sued if not in compliance with e.g., the ADA
- lazide 2y agoHow can you show the gov’t is not in compliance with the ADA if there is no one able to check for compliance with the ADA? Near as I can tell, that is also why the cyber intrusion investigation folks are being targeted to. If we never test, and there is no one to complain to, then clearly it is not a problem and not happening eh?
- foota 2y agoThat's what the courts are for.
- OldGuyInTheClub 2y ago[flagged]
- lazide 2y agoIMO, the thing to remember about the current administration, is that chaos is a useful tool. And for the last several admins (at least), actually solving problems isn’t really that interesting. It is just as useful for them that court challenges do work (at least against many of the smaller players) - as it gives them a chance to blame the courts, and push for more power. They aren’t there to actually solve problems (well, most problems anyway). They are there to get more personal power and wealth. If they can do that by pretending to do what someone needs, while actually not really solving that need and instead sowing the seeds of a bigger mess only they can solve? Awesome. If some of their supporters get thrown into the meat grinder for that to happen? Meh. As long as they can plausibly blame them for it, anyway. This, IMO applies to all the major ‘split’ issues - abortion, gun control, immigration, you name it. One ‘advantage’ too for those in power for those playing this game, is anyone someone ‘on the edge’ of doing legal stuff has to support them and give them even more power to undermine the legal system, since a reversion to the mean will definitely put them in jail.
- suraci 2y agoI regard it as a branch of bureaucracy. If you establish a department to handle a matter that is claimed to be important but is actually insignificant (often for public relations purposes), this department will actively expand its influence, inserting and entangling itself into every corner of the organization to avoid its own existential crisis. to avoid misunderstanding, here, the 'claimed to be important but is actually insignificant' refers to something that, from the organization's perspective
- lazide 2y agoAll of it is law, albeit a specific interpretation of the law. ‘legitimate business purpose’ discrimination has always been allowed, which is why it’s okay to only hire black actors for a role that calls for black actors in a movie, or only pretty young women as strippers, etc. Also, discrimination like ‘I just don’t like them’. Illegal discrimination is where the hiring person is discriminated based on a protected class where it is not a legitimate business need [https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/small-business/3-who-protected-employment-discrimination#:~:text=Applicants%2C%20employees%20and%20former%20employees,(including%20family%20medical%20history) https://www.eeoc.gov/employers/small-business/3-who-protecte....] There are a million different ways to structure these rules however (and actually do hiring) with different entirely predictable outcomes in actual employee race/sex/gender composition. As well as different types of employment environments that when interacting with regional cultural/socialization backgrounds, will result in entirely predictable outcomes in actual employee race/sex/gender/national origin/age compositions. For example, you aren’t going to find many supermodels working at the local sewer treatment plant. Or blandly ugly people working in the entertainment industry. However, depending on the organization and size (the federal gov’t has had this since the 70’s, and it’s been expanding over the years to even large companies the last 10ish or so), there is a federal requirement for Affirmative Action as well, where if the company/org, etc. doesn’t have the ‘right amount’ of people who meet course these criteria determined by the department of labor, then there is a presumption that it proves ‘defacto’ illegal discrimination. There is no need for candidates being discriminated against illegally at that point to show they are being discriminated against (and in fact, they may not actually be discriminated against in any explicit or conscious way) - the mere fact they are not there in a given % of representation is taken of evidence of that discrimination. That means if a company/organization gets too much attention, then they are required to actually discriminate against other candidates to ensure the outcomes of their hiring and retention roughly match what the DOL would expect. Regardless of the actual circumstances/suitability of their hiring. That also means if someone is ‘over represented’, then that means they’ll be discriminated against quite consistently and per the department of labor, ‘legally’. It’s essentially a ‘necessary evil’. The backlash now appears to be targeting anything related to those efforts, nominally under the idea of meritocracy, but eh, that is frankly not a very convincing figleaf. And yes, it will be targeting everyone who isn’t.. well, you can guess.
- archagon 2y agoLaws no longer matter. Our new president is a felon, after all.
- kcplate 2y agoAs was said in another comment on this thread, some agencies chose to add accessibility into their DEI programs. A11y needs were already legally protected (and still is). Unfortunately by tying it into a political concept (that is not precisely protected by law) that was implemented via an executive order, the agencies that chose to add the A to their DEI ended up putting those budgets for a11y at a temporary risk by executive order too. The government still needs to follow the ADA law and budget for that accordingly.
- fracus 2y agoLeopards are going to be eating a lot of faces.
- OldGuyInTheClub 2y agoNot seeing it happening. The base thrives on this. e.g. disabled reporter got mocked, no consequences.
- swat535 2y agoCan you help me understand your comment? What do you mean by this?
- summermusic 2y agoThis description from Know Your Meme[1] is accurate as far as I’ve seen the phrase used: “Leopards Eating People's Faces Party refers to a parody of regretful voters who vote for cruel and unjust policies (and politicians) and are then surprised when their own lives become worse as a result. It has been commonly used to parody regretful Brexit and Trump voters.” The parody here is essentially saying that if you supported the Republicans (Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party) and then you ended up being harmed (leopards ate your face) as a result of their policies that are explicit in their intent to harm people (we will eat people’s faces) despite thinking that you wouldn’t be harmed (“I never thought the leopards would eat __my__ face”) then you are a fool. [1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/leopards-eating-peoples-faces-party https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/leopards-eating-peoples-faces...
- bigolkevin 2y agoThis response is already so tired, like we need more excuses to be incompassionate with one another? It seems like it's just an excuse for mostly fine-under-trump White folks to go "welp, don't blame me, I didn't vote for him" to people who are actually impacted by his policies. And they seem to apply it liberally to people who may have never supported him or who belong to demographic groups that statistically voted for him way less than White folks. And even if they did vote for trump and are now facing the consequences? I still care enough not to laugh at them from the side lines for being the victim of a con man, and so should you.
- deanputney 2y agoThe purpose of these changes is to hurt those who are vulnerable to them. It's shocking to see how quickly people were willing to trade that support for some perceived short term gain. I suspect a lot of people are about to find out they're vulnerable too.
- griomnib 2y agoYea but people’s RSUs are up, that’s all that matters to the Silicon Valley voter. Screw the weak.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoNot quite sure what you're referring to here - Silicon Valley voted heavily against the current president. 68% margin the other way in Santa Clara county and 73% in San Mateo.
- OldGuyInTheClub 2y agoThe tech owners seem to have gone the other way with their votes (few) and money (big).
- SpicyLemonZest 2y agoSome did, others didn't. That's how it normally goes; there were plenty of Romney, McCain, and Bush voters in tech. The only reason it went differently during the last Trump presidency is that he went out of his way to antagonize tech leaders while promising to end the H1B program their businesses heavily rely on.
- whoknowsidont 2y agoThe silicon valley voter?
- h0l0cube 2y agoMore the SV tech-bro cabal. As I predicted this submission (1 hour old and ~70 upvotes, reached #1 10 minutes ago) has been removed from the front page. In fact I can't find how far it's been throttled. Even if it used to be, Silicon Valley is no longer the friend of anyone who holds a conscience.
- imgabe 2y agoIt sounds like the deia department was ineffective, but for some reason it’s bad that the ineffective department is going away. What were we paying these people for if they couldn’t do a simple thing like get screen reader software? This is why people want to get rid of DEI. Aside from all their obnoxious rhetoric, they don’t even accomplish the thing they say they’re supposed to do. I know people will claim that now nobody will buy any screen reader software, but it doesn’t sound like anyone was doing that before either.
- freejazz 2y agoNothing in the post indicates that he obtained his software through some kind of "DEIA" department and that's a serious misunderstanding of the efforts being made by the current administration in the gov't right now. They are not just closing "DEIA" "departments."
- imgabe 2y agoI didn’t say he obtained it through the DEIA department. Obviously, it went through the normal procurement process. What I’m saying is if the DEIA department was supposed to be advocating for him and helping with the process they were clearly useless in that regard.
- freejazz 2y agoThere is no DEIA department
- Quarrel 2y agolol. Have you ever dealt with government procurement? His problem wasn't that he wanted something to help him with his disability, his problem was that he wanted something as part of a government job. Getting rid of DEI won't change the way government procurement works.
- dqv 2y agoTheir argument is that, because the DEIA department is apparently ineffective, nothing is better than something.
- abhinai 2y agoIs DEIA a new term? I've only heard of DEI. What does A stand for? Also the EO seemed to target DEI, not whatever A stands for. What am I missing?
- Defletter 2y agoThe "A" means Accessibility, iirc.
- abathur 2y agoAccessibility. https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/nasa-moves-swiftly-to-end-dei-programs-ask-employees-to-report-violations/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/nasa-moves-swiftly-to-... This article has some context, but note that the heads of several agencies were all compelled to send the same thing out.
- dqv 2y agoIt stands for accessibility. I think you should read the executive order. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/endi...
- readthenotes1 2y agoYou're missing Section 2 of the e.o. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/endi...
- undersuit 2y agoYes, it's a new term.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoI believe it is mentioned in the executive order to cover things like government contracting that is discriminatory, where vendors who are of a certain race or gender or disabled get preference when bidding.
- readthenotes1 2y agohttps://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/endi... DEI, DEIA, Environmental Justice Sounds like it's to end or force underground affirmative action programs for bipoc, disabled, and climate change
- smashah 2y agoRichard J Murphy coined the term "Age of Aggression" which we are now in (before we were in an "Age of Indifference" and before that "Age of Compassion"). A11y, good-faith DEI, equality/equity programs were conceived in the AoC and then started to get implemented in the AoI, but in the AoA it will be rolled back with extreme prejudice (at least in USA) with plethora unintended consequences as laid out by OP. While people gormlessly argue about the myth of meritocracy, there will come a certain point where only those who can't recognize (or actively dismiss/excuse) N*zi salutes will be the only ones conveniently not suspected of being "legacy DEI" hires. Relevant quote: “When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression."
- jachee 2y ago[flagged]
- smashah 2y agoYes they are literally doing that. I wouldn't usually censor it but I know not-shitting-on-DEI gets heavily downvoted/flagged on here so I thought I could avoid some of that mob. I failed in that regard so far it seems...
- ConspiracyFact 2y ago[flagged]
- dyauspitr 2y agoWhat a terrible auth government. All the policies are regressive leading to less science, less technological progression, less clean energy and less rights and more inequality for the vast majority of this country.
- Maxious 2y agoAs the a11y community has noted, the whitehouse.gov accessibility policy has been removed and is not available from the site footer. Previous policy was: > agencies must include a link to the accessibility statement in the sitewide footer, per OMB guidance on Delivering a Digital-First Public Experience (M-23-22) > Per M-23-22, agencies should not link to digital accessibility statements from a sub-page, such as a “Website Policies & Notices”. Agencies must link directly to the digital accessibility statement from the website footer https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/website-accessibility-statement/ https://www.section508.gov/manage/laws-and-policies/website-...
- userbinator 2y agoThe messaging leading up to the election was all about DEI. Who decided to add the A to it too? Complaining about accessibility wasn't on the mind of any Trump voters that I know.
- cratermoon 2y agoRemember that Trump said this about disabiled veterans: “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.”
- unsnap_biceps 2y agoProject 2025 contained a number of governing agenda proposals that include weakening Americans with Disabilities Act and reducing funding for accessibility programs. It's part of their core belief in meritocracy to an extreme.
- userbinator 2y agoA change of direction was wanted by the population and at least we avoided going down the path to a Harrison Bergeron dystopia, but this may be an overcorrection. ADA was used as a weapon against small businesses and caused a lot of products to change in unwanted ways for ADA compliance, leaving those who are only purchasing for personal use without good options, so I understand the opposition. Hopefully this leads to a more commonsense approach to accessibility instead of mandated bureaucratic box-ticking.
- archagon 2y agoFascists hate “the weak” and see them as a drain on communal resources. Sadly, this development is completely unsurprising.
- zczc 2y ago> Who decided to add the A to it too? First, DEI became DEIA under Biden, see the executive order [1] (now worryingly removed from the site). That had some logic as a mission creep which is always welcomed by the bureaucrats. Second, when the Trump decided to dismantle DEI, keeping "DEIA" didn't make sense, and surgically removing DEI from DEIA is not his style. So it was removed altogether, and the bureaucrats cared more about going with pendulum swing more than caring about any unintended effects, so anything associated with DEI was removed without any care about accessibility. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20250120152648/https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/25/executive-order-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-workforce/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250120152648/https://www.white...
- cratermoon 2y agoIn case anyone is surprised or skeptical about accessibility being targeted, remember what Trump said about disabiled veterans. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/gen-mark-milleys-disturbing-reminder-trumps-disdain-wounded-vets-rcna111476 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/gen-mark-milleys...
- devinprater 2y agoOnce they start touching the Library of Congress's program for free audio and Braille books for the blind and other print disabled, then we'll see some action from the blind community. However, I suspect the Deaf community will act first, and with force. It's amazing to see how indifferent people are around me. Trump voters are all about getting rid of DEI, completely missing the A, which they'll someday need if they grow old enough. At least Apple isn't getting rid of their accessibility program. But I fear what this will do as a signal to other companies, particularly apps like Doordash, which some people rely on. Oh, and can't forget Facebook, which is headed in Trump's direction, which tons of blind people use. But, we'll struggle on as we always have. Eventually, Windows will decay enough for blind programmers to finally have enough and switch to Linux, and we'll ride that wave as long as we can. And then Tim Cook will retire, some conservative will take his place, and we'll all have to move to Android lol. Would be just our luck.
- tempaccount420 2y agoAccessibility could mostly (completely?) be solved with on-device AI agents, which would be a lot easier than trying to get companies to implement accessibility on their side.
- fmajid 2y agoPerhaps one day Trump will remember (or learn, more likely) that the Nazis would have murdered his autistic son Barron without a second thought.