<p>In the last year of the Biden administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs inaugurated an effort to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion principles that would outlast their time in power.</p>
<p>In January 2024, the VA&#8217;s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Council met to discuss the results of a survey, wherein employees were asked to identify &#8220;pain points&#8221; connected to their individual identities — based on race, gender identity, and a number of other factors — in order to further embed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the agency.</p>
<p>The discussion centered on &#8220;identity insights&#8221; and was designed to &#8220;improve employee experience,&#8221; records obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America reveal.</p>
<p>Just under 300 participants identified some 5,710 &#8220;pain points&#8221; that ranged from complaints about a colleague making an &#8220;inappropriate comment&#8221; to concerns that office holiday decorations excluded certain religious preferences. Other &#8220;pain points&#8221; were centered on general workplace environment and feeling that other employees did not understand certain sensitivities connected to those identity characteristics.</p>
<p>The 2024 meeting, which was planned three years earlier, began as a partnership between the Veterans Experience Office&#8217;s Employee Experience Organizational Management Directorate and the Office of Resolution Management, Diversity and Inclusion to improve employee experience by addressing the &#8220;pain points&#8221; they experienced in the workplace based on their identities.</p>
<p>Those identities — in addition to race, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity — divided participants along religious lines and listed separate categories for Baby Boomers, Generation X-ers, Millennials, and Generation Z employees as well.</p>
<p>Of the 281 who were interviewed, only 3% answered based on only one identifier. Nearly one-fourth (24%) selected two identities, and 39% selected three. Of the remaining participants, 21% chose four identities, 11% chose five, and 2% chose six.</p>
<p>Following the late January meeting, the Council recommended a series of steps designed to make the VA a more receptive place for employees to express their &#8220;whole, authentic identity.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;The three most pressing data fields that would benefit from a redesign as having emerged from the Identity Insights project include &#8216;gender,&#8217; &#8216;sexual orientation,&#8217; and &#8216;race,&#8217; as these categories either do not exist or do not exhaustively provide inclusive options for employees to holistically and accurately self-identify,&#8221; the study advised.</p>
<p>Another recommendation was for a &#8220;streamlined escalation pathway&#8221; for employees to resolve identity-based complaints — particularly &#8220;in the event of mistreatment, including reporting I*DEA issues, harassment, and general concerns with conduct in the workplace.&#8221;</p>
<p>Those complaints, the study indicated, could stem from interactions between employees, between employees and supervisors, and even between employees and the veterans they serve — with emphasis placed on the potential for veterans to create &#8220;pain points&#8221; that impact employees.</p>
<p>The study also suggested there should be an avenue for dealing with &#8220;the impacts of negative customer experiences on employees such as health practitioners providing additional coverage when LGBTQ+ Veterans are denied care by a colleague&#8221; — but did not provide evidence that such denial of care was happening within the VA system.</p>
<p>Almost one year to the day after that meeting — on January 27, 2025 — the VA under President Donald Trump had already begun to <a href="https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-ends-dei-stops-millions-in-spending-on-dei/">root out the DEI initiatives</a> within the department.</p>
<p>&#8220;Under President Trump, VA is laser-focused on providing the best possible care and benefits to Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors,&#8221; VA Director of Media Affairs Morgan Ackley explained. &#8220;We are proud to have abandoned the divisive DEI policies of the past and pivot back to VA’s core mission.&#8221;</p>
<p>In the year since, under Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, the agency has <a href="https://department.va.gov/2025accomplishments/">cut $14 million</a> in spending that went solely to DEI-focused initiatives and training. It is unclear whether the recommendations made during that meeting were ever implemented, and if so, what the new administration may have in place to put a stop to the process.</p>

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How The Biden Admin Tried To Keep The VA Woke After It Left Town