The Trump administration’s Department of Labor (DOL), in coordination with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), announced Tuesday the cancellation of $13.6 million in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) grants—many of which were earmarked for programs promoting gender ideology and global social justice initiatives.

In total, 25 grants were terminated, saving taxpayers $8.4 million that would have gone toward niche “equity summits,” controversial “gender awareness” training, and workforce outreach projects focused on transgender and “gender-expansive” individuals. One DOL source called the programs “discriminatory DEI experiments.”

Among the axed initiatives:

• $716,000 for “DEIA materials, training modules, and support networks” targeting gender-diverse individuals.
• $398,000 for gender equity awareness courses.
• $350,000 to support migration-related “receiving communities.”
• Multiple local projects across Texas, Mississippi, and Pennsylvania designed to benefit nonbinary and transgender participants, including programs for “justice-involved women” and “climate justice” for vulnerable racial communities.

One example included a DEI-driven pre-apprenticeship training initiative in Biloxi, Mississippi, designed specifically for transgender and nonbinary residents of the Gulf Coast. Another, located in Pittsburgh, aimed to expand job recruitment into “historically underrepresented communities,” singling out categories such as LGBTQI+, immigrant women, and women of color.

But the cuts didn’t just apply to domestic programs.

DOGE and DOL also slashed global DEI-related grants, including:

• $12.2 million for “worker empowerment” in South America.
• $5 million for “elevating women’s workplace participation” in West Africa.
• $3 million to build “inclusive work environments” in Lesotho.
• $4.3 million for migrant labor protections in Malaysia.
• $3 million for migrant worker benefits in Bangladesh.

“We want to focus on getting more women into good-paying jobs based on merit—not funding discriminatory DEI experiments that elevate gender ideology over the real challenges women face in the workforce,” said DOL spokesperson Courtney Parella in a statement to Breitbart News.

The decision builds on an earlier move by the Department of Labor in March to terminate $577 million in what it called “America Last” contracts—programs that emphasized international labor rights, climate justice, and gender-based economic outreach abroad.

It’s all part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to dismantle what critics call the entrenched “woke industrial complex” in federal government agencies. Secretary of Government Efficiency Elon Musk and DOGE have spearheaded a wide-ranging audit of federal spending, revealing billions allocated to what the administration calls fringe ideological priorities.

The administration has also pledged to restore “merit-first” workforce policies and strip away what officials describe as bureaucratic bloat that prioritizes identity politics over results. Officials within DOGE have expressed concern that federal spending under previous administrations had morphed into “a global DEI grant machine” that undermined U.S. economic competitiveness and promoted divisive ideologies at home.

“These funds were never about worker opportunity,” a senior DOGE official told Breitbart. “They were about reengineering culture—domestically and internationally—to suit a left-wing political agenda.”

For the communities previously receiving these funds, the cuts represent a dramatic shift in federal priorities. But for fiscal hawks and critics of DEI, the latest move is a long-overdue course correction aimed at bringing transparency and accountability back to government spending.

As for what’s next? The administration has promised continued reviews of labor contracts, DEI departments across federal agencies, and international funding pipelines, with more cuts expected in the coming weeks. If Tuesday’s announcement is any indication, the days of quietly funding radical DEI initiatives—especially ones tied to gender ideology or climate activism—may be numbered.