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'Segregated facilities' are no longer explicitly banned in federal contracts
March 18, 2025
After a recent change by the Trump administration, the federal government no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms and drinking fountains.
The segregation clause is one of several identified in a public memo issued by the General Services Administration last month, affecting all civil federal agencies. The memo explains that it is making changes prompted by President Trump's executive order on diversity, equity and inclusion, which repealed an executive order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 regarding federal contractors and nondiscrimination. The memo also addresses Trump's executive order on gender identity.
While there are still state and federal laws that outlaw segregation and discrimination that companies need to comply with, legal experts say this change to contracts across the federal government is significant.
"It's symbolic, but it's incredibly meaningful in its symbolism," says Melissa Murray, a constitutional law professor at New York University. "These provisions that required federal contractors to adhere to and comply with federal civil rights laws and to maintain integrated rather than segregated workplaces were all part of the federal government's efforts to facilitate the settlement that led to integration in the 1950s and 1960s.
"The fact that they are now excluding those provisions from the requirements for federal contractors, I think, speaks volumes," Murray says.
The Trump-Musk Regime Wants to Make Segregation Great Again
March 19, 2025
Last month, accordiing to NPR, the Trump administration made a racist change to its rules for business that get federal contracts, so that “the federal government no longer explicitly prohibits contractors from having segregated restaurants, waiting rooms and drinking fountains.”
The change to the Federal Acquisition Regulation—which is promulgated by the General Services Administration—doesn’t necessarily mean that people are free to segregate to their heart’s desire. Technically, for now at least, anyone that contracts with the federal government still has to comply with all relevant civil rights laws, including the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits segregation.
But the change to the rules is not just symbolic. Everything we know and have seen from this administration tells us that compliance with anti-segregation laws will not be enforced by Trump’s government. The Department of Justice will not bring discrimination lawsuits against companies that reimpose segregation. And now, any business that does segregate its workforce can still get a federal contract, even if the business is in blatant violation of the Civil Rights Act, which won’t be enforced against them anyway.
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