NASA personnel were told to “drop everything” to scrub public sites of mentions of DEI, indigenous people, environmental justice, and women in leadership, according to a directive obtained by 404 Media.
The directive, sent on January 22 and obtained by 404 Media, states:
“Per NASA HQ direction, we are required to scrub mentions of the following terms from our public sites by 5pm ET today. This is a drop everything and reprioritize your day request. Note that the list below is the list that exists this morning, but it may grow as the day goes on.
- DEIA
- Diversity (in context of DEIA)
- Equity (“ “)
- Inclusion (“ “)
- Accessibility (“ “)
- MSI
- Minority Serving Institution
- Indigenous People
- EEJ
- EJ
- Environmental Justice
- Underrepresented groups/people
- Anything specifically targeting women (women in leadership, etc.)”
By now, Trump’s war on “DEI” is well documented. But the directive shows the specific words that some agencies were asked to delete, providing a clearer picture of how agencies have been asked to scrub information. A NASA employee told 404 Media “we were absolutely required to scrub all DEI related or DEI adjacent topics and terms from all external websites by 5pm the 22nd, which was a drop everything and get it done task.” 404 Media granted the employee anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.