In 2014, then-President Barack Obama signed an executive order mandating that federal contractors document their compliance with labor laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBT employees, among other groups. In January, Trump promised not to rescind it. Last week, he did.
Obama’s Executive Order had required contractors to prove that they weren’t discriminating against employees based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or age—though Trump has not yet rolled back an Executive Order signed by Obama that prohibits LGBT discrimination by federal contractors, he has now wiped out a process which kept employers bound by that EO accountable for compliance. There will no longer be documentation of the practices these employers put into place, and employees will now be left to file suits on their own.
No explanation was offered by the White House for Trump’s reasoning for this particular move, although Vice President Mike Pence’s record is staunchly anti-LGBTQ.
