When President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, the national unemployment rate was at 4 percent overall, and at 5.3 percent for Black workers. On Tuesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its November 2025 dataset, and although the total unemployment rate is at 4.6 percent, the Black unemployment rate has soared to 8.3 percent—the highest level since August 2021.
One contributing factor is Trump’s mass firings of federal employees. Black people disproportionately work in the public sector, representing nearly 19 percent of the federal workforce compared to 13 percent of the civilian workforce. And they have been disproportionately impacted by Trump’s purges: Analyses by ProPublica and The New York Times found that the administration conducted its steepest staff cuts at the agencies with the most nonwhite and women workers, like the Department of Education and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
But the federal layoffs offer only a partial explanation. What the data is beginning to reveal is the devastating cumulative effects of the Trump administration’s policies for workers of color.
In January, for instance, Trump revoked an executive order that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed in 1965 which prohibited companies with government contracts from engaging in racial discrimination. Johnson’s order required contractors to “take affirmative action” to ensure that applicants are hired (and employees are treated) without regard to their race.
For decades, Johnson’s executive order helped increase the representation of people of color and white women. For example, a longitudinal study spanning from 1973 to 2003 found that the affirmative action initiatives increased Native American employment by nearly 4 percent. Another analysis of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data from 1978 to 2004 concluded that the share of Black workers at government contractors continued to increase even after a contract ended and the employer was no longer subject to the regulations.
Now, Trump is blocking that important vehicle for integrating the workplace, characterizing it as “illegal DEI,” referring to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Instead of requiring companies to take affirmative action, Trump is requiring companies to certify that they are not “promoting DEI.” The administration also did not define the term, effectively discouraging companies that want to keep their government contracts from engaging in any activity that could conceivably be characterized as DEI. For reference, to date, the things the administration has decried as DEI include the Calibri font and indoor plumbing in Black neighborhoods.
On top of trying to prevent people of color from entering the workforce, the administration is making it easier to kick them out. Since taking office, Trump has claimed to possess limitless power to fire executive branch officers for any reason, including reasons that violate federal antidiscrimination law. Earlier this month, former immigration judge Tania Nemer sued the Trump administration and alleged that Trump fired her because of her sex, national origin, and political affiliation. Before she filed a complaint in federal court, she filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, arguing that her termination violated the Civil Rights Act. But the DOJ dismissed her complaint, writing that as an “inferior officer” under the Constitution, Nemer’s removal was “beyond the purview” of federal equal employment opportunity laws.
“Article II of the Constitution allows the President and heads of departments exercising his power to remove inferior officers without cause, subject to only narrow exceptions that do not apply to your former position,” said the DOJ letter. “No statute provides otherwise, and even if it did, the statute would run afoul of Article II.” Quite literally, this amounts to a claim of constitutional power for the president to fire thousands of government workers who are designated as “inferior officers,” based on their sex, race, or on any number of other legally protected characteristics.
The Trump administration has had the opportunity to back away from this implication. Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Trump v. Slaughter, the case about Trump’s attempts to fire members of the Federal Trade Commission who enjoy statutory job protections. Justice Clarence Thomas directly asked Solicitor General D. John Sauer for an example of a permissible restriction on the president’s removal authority. Sauer provided none, because, he says, none exists. “We don’t believe there are permissible restrictions on principal officers of the United States who exercise the executive power,” said Sauer.
Now, the Trump administration is trying to dismantle legal structures that allow people of color to challenge discrimination in the workplace. Congress and the courts recognized decades ago that even policies which may appear neutral on their face can disproportionately harm people of color. Because of this, many antidiscrimination laws incorporate disparate impact liability, a legal framework that asks if a rule is disproportionately harming a group of people, and if so, if that rule is actually necessary. If it is not, courts can take action to stop it.
Yet last week, the Department of Justice announced that it would no longer enforce disparate impact liability under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits recipients of federal funds from discriminating based on race. Specifically, the rule would mean that anyone who receives DOJ funding—chiefly, local law enforcement agencies—would be free to engage in conduct that disproportionately harms people of color without worrying about Title VI enforcement action. In a press release, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon criticized disparate impact liability for allowing challenges to “neutral policies” without “evidence of intentional discrimination.”
This is wrong. What Dhillon’s analysis ignores is that disparate impact liability is the framework that allows courts to find out if a policy is indeed neutral, or if it merely disguises intentional discrimination. By limiting liability only to cases where there is open evidence of intentional discrimination, millions of people of color who interact with recipients of federal funds—whether applying for jobs, going to work, or just going about their lives—will be cut off from recourse for anything but the most obvious and explicit discrimination.
The Trump administration’s policies work in tandem. It is harder for people of color to enter the workforce. It is harder for them to remain in the workforce. And if they are victimized by illegal discrimination, it is harder for them to do anything about it.
