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President Donald Trump signs an executive order on TikTok Jan. 20, 2025, in the Oval Office of the White House. (AP) President Donald Trump signs an executive order on TikTok Jan. 20, 2025, in the Oval Office of the White House. (AP)

President Donald Trump signs an executive order on TikTok Jan. 20, 2025, in the Oval Office of the White House. (AP)

Jeff Cercone
By Jeff Cercone January 24, 2025

If Your Time is short

  • President Donald Trump revoked executive order 11246, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965.

  • Johnson’s order required federal contractors to ensure equal opportunity for minorities in recruitment, hiring, training and other employment practices.

  • The social media claims referred to the 1965 “Equal Employment Opportunity Act.” There was no such law passed that year. The 1972 Equal Employment Opportunity Act remains intact.

President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders in his first few days, including one that overturned a decades-old executive order about employment discrimination.

Although critics argue Trump’s action removes protections for millions of workers, some social media users misleadingly claimed Trump overturned a law, and appeared to confuse the executive order he killed with a more wide-reaching employment law that remains intact.

Several Instagram posts said, "Donald Trump has revoked the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1965. The order prohibited discrimination in hiring and employment based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin." We found similar language used in X posts.

Several of these posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.) 

There is no 1965 Equal Employment Opportunity Act. An "act" refers to legislation passed by Congress — an act of Congress — and signed into law by a president. A president cannot unilaterally overturn a law with an executive order.

A president can, however, amend or withdraw another president’s executive order, which is what Trump did in this case. On Jan. 21, Trump issued an executive order titled, "Ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity."

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The order targeted several diversity, equity and inclusion policies that Trump’s order called "illegal," including executive order 11246, a landmark order signed Sept. 24, 1965, by then-President Lyndon B. Johnson. 

Johnson’s order prevented federal contractors from hiring discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. Employees hired by federal contractors make up about a fifth of the U.S. workforce, the Labor Department said.

A Labor Department webpage describing the order includes the words, "Executive Order 11246 — Equal Employment Opportunity" at the top. Some of the social media posts that incorrectly referred to it as an "act" also referred to it as an "order," and shared screenshots of Executive Order 11246.

The 1965 order required that "federal contractors over a certain dollar amount take affirmative action to hire women and ‘minorities,’" City University of New York School of Law professor Rick Rossein told PolitiFact in an email. "It sets goals and timetables, not quotas."

Rossein said some people might have confused Johnson’s 1965 order with the 1964 Civil Rights Act he signed into law that went into effect July 5, 1965. That law created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and more widely prohibits employment discrimination because of race, color, national origin, religion and sex.

That law eventually led Congress to pass another law, the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, that people could have confused with the order Trump revoked. That law amended the portion of the Civil Rights Act that pertained to employment discrimination, making it applicable to state and local governments, Rossein said.

Former President Ronald Reagan in 1984 had planned to revoke Johnson’s Executive Order 11246, but changed course after his plans leaked and civil rights groups, legislators and corporations opposed the plan, The Washington Post reported in January 2024.

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Our Sources

Instagram post, Jan. 22, 2025 (archived)

Instagram post, Jan. 22, 2025 (archived)

Instagram post, Jan. 22, 2025 (archived)

X post, Jan. 22, 2025 (archived)

X post, Jan. 22, 2025

X post, Jan. 22, 2025

Email interview, City University of New York School of Law professor Rick Rossein, Jan. 23, 2025

Email interview, Ira Kurzban, attorney, Jan. 24, 2025

White House, Ending illegal discrimination and restoring merit-based opportunity, Jan. 21, 2025

U.S. Department of Labor, Executive Order 11246, accessed Jan. 23, 2025 (archived)

U.S. Department of Labor, Executive Order 11246, As Amended, accessed Jan. 23, 2025 (archived)

U.S. Department of Labor, History of Executive Order 11246, accessed Jan. 23, 2025 (archived)

National Law Review, EO 11246 On Affirmative Action is Dead – But What Will Take Its Place?, Jan. 22, 2025

United States Senate, Laws and Acts, accessed Jan. 23, 2025

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Requiring Discrimination-Free Workplaces for 60 Years, accessed Jan. 23, 2025

U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, accessed Jan. 23, 2025

The Associated Press, Everything Trump did in the first executive orders and actions of his presidency, Jan. 22, 2025

The Washington Post, When Reagan tried to undo affirmative action, corporations fought back, Jan. 21, 2024

The Washington Post, In first days, Trump deals ‘death blow’ to DEI and affirmative action, Jan. 23, 2025

The Washington Post, Trump revoked an anti-discrimination hiring rule. Here’s what it means, Jan. 23, 2025

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Did Trump kill ‘Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1965’? Here’s why that claim caused confusion