The Wait is Over: The New Rules for DEI are Here
By: Jessica Mensah | September 12, 2025 | 6 min read
On May 29, 2025, the federal government’s Human Resources department, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), released the “Merit Hiring Plan”, a detailed, 30-page policy document outlining new federal hiring rules. I stumbled across the document as I was reflecting on the widespread layoffs of federal employees in recent months where in some cases, those same employees were being hired back. I was surprised to see the document because as an HR practitioner, I had heard nothing about it, despite the groundbreaking details it contained. The purpose of the Merit Hiring Plan, as stated in the official document, is to provide the process, technology, and policy tools to allow the Federal government to hire the most talented, capable, and patriotic Americans—at scale, with drastically improved cost, speed, and quality.
A Follow up to Executive Orders14151 & 14173
The policy is a direct follow up to President Trump’s Executive Orders14151 and 14173, directing the dismantling and total elimination of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) from the federal government, federal agencies and federal contractors. Mr. Trump also encouraged private sector companies to follow suit, and many did not disappoint. By now, you’ve heard about the sweeping elimination of senior level Diversity, Equity and Inclusion roles from top organizations like Amazon, Google, Walmart and Target. You’ve heard about aspirational representation targets being removed, and accountability measures eradicated, seemingly overnight. The saddest part, however, is that many of these programs simply aimed to expand access, remove barriers and create pathways to the realization of the American dream. They were intended to build understanding of our collective lived experiences through things like inclusion and unconscious bias training - actions that rarely triggered lawsuits because they had nothing to do with pay, hiring or firing decisions. These actions, aimed at addressing systematic exclusion, are now being painted as criminal and illegal - citing DEI as showing illegal preference for specific groups based on matters of race, religion, disability, sex, etc. Many companies that previously pledged their support for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, found themselves quickly walking back those commitments due to what they described as mounting political pressure, economic headwinds, the evolving legal landscape, and the list goes on.
The New Framework: The Merit Hiring Plan
The Merit Hiring Plan contains a robust introduction that frames the justification for the new framework, stating the following:
“Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system. Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.”
“These illegal DEI and DEIA policies also threaten the safety of American men, women, and children across the Nation by diminishing the importance of individual merit, aptitude, hard work, and determination when selecting people for jobs and services in key sectors of American society, including all levels of government, and the medical, aviation, and law-enforcement communities. Yet in case after tragic case, the American people have witnessed first-hand the disastrous consequences of illegal, pernicious discrimination that has prioritized how people were born instead of what they were capable of doing.”
The document goes on to detail how to dismantle DEI from all aspects of the employee life cycle, replacing demographic metrics with merit, to protect civil rights. In what seems to be a mission to remove what the plan is referring to as “preferential treatment,” the Merit Hiring Plan appears to replace it with a new type of preference – ideology. Ideology that is structured, embedded and upheld under the banner of neutrality. And there might be a reason that the movement is framed as “restoring merit” because “merit” is in the eye of the decision maker, just as neutrality is in the eye of whoever makes the rules. In fact, according to vocalulary.com, “merit” is defined as 1. the quality of being deserving’ 2. any admirable quality or attribute, 3. worthiness. In this case, we’re left wondering who is deemed as deserving, worthy and admirable.
So how exactly does the Merit Hiring Plan explain the new hiring rules? I’ve designed the table below to capture some of the most noteworthy aspects of the government's plan to hire the most talented, capable, and patriotic Americans:
The Merit Hiring Plan reframes merit from what previously represented an individual’s knowledge, skills, experience, qualifications and ability to do the job to now mean a combination of ability to pass a series of tests and loyalty to a person, political program, and the very first draft of the U.S Constitution. The essay questions openly test for partisan alignment, the skills and competency-based tests have little apparent accountability to test design, fairness or equity, and the push for eradicating perceived preference-based hiring is replaced with open arms to faith-based and home-schooled networks. The speed in hiring paired with shared and selective talent pools, may come at the expense of diversified talent pipelines and slates and candidates who are authentically and objectively qualified for the job.
HR Takes a Back Seat
For HR professionals currently involved in designing the hiring process, standards and frameworks for decision making for your organizations, here is the part of the Merit Hiring Plan that might create a bit of angst:
“Empower hiring managers to use the full range of hiring authorities and assessment strategies available to them, particularly those that relate to critical, specialized, or hard-to-recruit skills, and that they are aware of allowable recruitment activity in accordance with merit system principles and lawful personnel practices”
“Use any rating and ranking method allowed by law and regulation and appropriate for the given hiring action when initiating a competitive recruitment action, giving hiring managers more control in designing hiring processes relevant to their talent needs.”
History Loves to Repeat Itself
If private sector companies follow the Merit Hiring Plan used by the federal workforce, it could significantly reshape the entire employee lifecycle for all American workers across sectors. This includes how companies’ source, screen, hire, manage, develop, promote and terminate employees.
Even organizations that have only reaffirmed their commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility since January are likely to continue facing increased scrutiny regarding these initiatives, as the term has become controversial and sadly, a “dirty word” in certain media and public discourse. We are undoubtedly at an inflection point—or what I refer to as an "inflection canvas"—where transformation is unavoidable, though exactly how this will play out, what strategies companies pursue, and which organizations emerge as winners or losers is still anyone’s guess.
My Top 10 Predictions for How Corporations Will Respond
If the Hiring Merit Plan, along with the slew of other recently released guidelines from OPM find its way into Corporate America, these are my top predictions for how some companies might respond:
Reframing Continues - Belonging and Inclusion will become the prominent strategic for DEI, safe and well-intended but vague and lacking a tangible strategy
Hiring Processes - Job-specific competency and skills assessments increase, along with more structured and formalized interviews
Hiring Speed - Speed becomes a dominant hiring metric for both external candidates (time-to-fill) and internal candidates via cross-functional talent mapping using pre-vetted talent pools
Pre-screening - Traditional pre-screening questions will evolve significantly to prioritize how quickly a candidate can start in a role by confirming American citizenship, not work authorization, removing preferences for years of experience and educational requirements entirely
Redefining Merit - “Culture fit” makes a comeback in hiring decisions
New Hire Onboarding doubles down on culture, mission and values indoctrination
Skills strategy work, skills assessments and mapping continues for Learning & Talent organizations
Psychological Safety is downplayed as teams become more homogeneous with job limiting consequences for disagreement, especially when it inhibits speed
Manager Inclusion Training pops off....but what does this mean? is it jargon, insider language, etc?
High performer attrition skyrockets, opting to join organizations they feel better align to their personal values or entering the white-collar “gig economy”
If You’re Reading This, It’s Not Too Late…..
With so many companies grappling with what’s next for DEI, the new rules are already taking shape. Before we all wake up one day to widespread adoption across the corporate workforce, I think it’s important to consider - whether redefining merit as ideological conformity is the right call, which accountability and transparency measures should be implemented, and how hiring efficiency impacts efforts to build an inclusive workplace. Proactively addressing these questions will help shape intentional outcomes rather than allowing defaults to determine the path forward.
Written By: Jessica Mensah | Behavioral Economist - People Strategist - Org & Transformation Architect
