Keith’s note: According to an email sent out late on Thursday: “On January 20th, 2025, the President of the United States of America signed an Executive Order entitled “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions”. This Order repealed Executive Order 14035, “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce.” It also directed agencies to take immediate action to identify and terminate DEIA initiatives and programs. To comply with this order, SMD is in the process of amending open Program Elements in ROSES-2024 to end the Inclusion Plan Pilot Study, remove requirements for Inclusion Plans and the evaluation factors associated with them, and adjust the content of some other Program Elements to remove references to NASA’s DEIA programs. Program elements that have already received proposals will not be amended, but if they required Inclusion Plans, those plans will not be reviewed and will not impact the selection of proposals. The program elements that will be amended include:” (long list below)

Keith’s note: Looks like Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro has totally bought into this. Her words. Update: In all fairness this is the OPM memo that Team Trump sent to all agencies with a template wording for memos, etc. That said, Janet Petro agreed to be NASA Acting Administrator so she had to send it out – but she sent it out under her name without explaining that she was told to do so. As such, minus any explanation, it is her words unless she clarifies things. PAO has not provided any information on this memo. So it is what it is.

Keith’s note: This NASA Diversity and Inclusion webpage will soon go dark. According to this Executive Action all government agencies are directed to “Terminate all “diversity,” “equity,” “equitable decision-making,” “equitable deployment of financial and technical assistance,” “advancing equity,” and like mandates, requirements, programs, or activities, as appropriate.” According to this OPM memo: “No later than 5:00 pm EST on Wednesday, January 22, 2025

• a. Send an agency-wide notice to employees informing them of the closure and asking employees if they know of any efforts to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language a template agency-wide notice is attached as Appendix 1.
• b. Send a notification to all employees of DEIA offices that they are being placed on paid administrative leave effective immediately as the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.1 A template employee letter is attached as Appendix 2.
• c. Take down all outward facing media (websites, social media accounts, etc.) of DEIA offices.“