NEW YORK, April 3, 2017 – Out Leadership has issued a statement on the Executive Order on federal contracting President Trump signed last week.
“By signing this order, President Trump has broken his promise to leave protections for LGBT+ employees who work for federal contractors in place,” said Out Leadership founder and principal Todd Sears. “This order removes the verification mechanism that’s needed to make sure that federal contractors have nondiscrimination policies inclusive of LGBT+ people – and will make it easy for companies that discriminate against LGBT+ people to continue to receive federal contracts.”
“President Trump cannot have it both ways when it comes to LGBT+ rights,” Sears continued. “When he indicated in January that he intended to keep the LGBT+ nondiscrimination requirement in place, we welcomed his wise decision. But this Executive Order, which effectively kneecaps the government’s ability to make sure that companies are following the law, and which he signed under the cover of night, is anything but wise.”
“Smart businesspeople follow the axiom ‘Trust but verify,’” concluded Sears. “Laws require enforcement. The fact that the Trump administration prefers not to verify whether federal contractors have adopted nondiscrimination policies inclusive of LGBT+ people makes it clear that this administration is far from trustworthy when it comes to LGBT+ equality.”