{"id":14737,"date":"2026-08-13T21:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T18:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/?p=14737"},"modified":"2026-08-13T21:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T18:00:14","slug":"state-department-scraps-biden-dei-diplomacy-directive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/state-department-scraps-biden-dei-diplomacy-directive\/","title":{"rendered":"State Department Scraps Biden DEI Diplomacy Directive"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote data-service=\"twitter\" data-category=\"marketing\" data-placeholder-image=\"https:\/\/brusselssignal.eu\/content\/plugins\/complianz-gdpr\/assets\/images\/placeholders\/twitter-minimal.jpg\" class=\"cmplz-placeholder-element twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Wokeness and the Secret Service\u2019s failure: DEI can cost lives, writes <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/bogdanosk?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@bogdanosk<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full article \ud83d\udc49\ud83c\udffc <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1Smx9apabG\">https:\/\/t.co\/1Smx9apabG<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Q3BmspQLmU\">pic.twitter.com\/Q3BmspQLmU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/brusselssignal\/status\/1814268624426684596?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 19, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>According to <em>Brussels Signal<\/em>, internal documents obtained by Fox News reveal that previous guidance had directed Foreign Service officers to systematically promote social inclusion, racial and gender equity, disability rights, and LGBTQ issues during high-level meetings with foreign officials.<\/p>\n<p>The directive came in the form of an internal checklist distributed to embassy front offices, the senior leadership teams responsible for running State Department bureaus and diplomatic missions around the world. Adherence to these requirements was built directly into performance evaluations and promotion decisions.<\/p>\n<p>Fox News Digital reported on August 13, 2026 that these criteria have now been scrapped from personnel assessment standards.<\/p>\n<h2>DEI Weighted Heavily in Diplomat Performance Reviews<\/h2>\n<p>Under the previous system, DEI-related activities accounted for up to 20 percent of diplomats&#8217; performance evaluations, according to materials published in April 2025 by the Department of Government Efficiency and publicly backed by Secretary of State <strong>Marco Rubio<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Officers were graded on whether they avoided so-called gendered adjectives, lobbied local organisations to implement DEIA training programmes and awards ceremonies, and imposed race or gender quotas on embassy-sponsored speaking panels and public events.<\/p>\n<p>A presidential memorandum issued in March 2025 formally removed the DEIA core precept from Foreign Service tenure and promotion standards, eliminating one of the five categories previously evaluated by promotion boards.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2025, the State Department disclosed that an internal review had identified 295 Foreign Service officers who were denied advancement opportunities in 2024 due to the policy, and announced plans to provide restitution.<\/p>\n<h2>Taxpayer Funds Used for Drag Shows and Gender Ideology Abroad<\/h2>\n<p>During the same period, American taxpayer dollars financed a range of programmes including drag performances in Ecuador, transgender advocacy campaigns in India, gender and sexuality libraries in Lebanon, and DEI training for police departments across Latin America.<\/p>\n<p>The Ecuador grant, awarded in September 2022, totalled $20,600 (\u20ac17,850) and funded a cultural centre in Cuenca to stage 12 drag theatre performances, three workshops, and a two-minute documentary.<\/p>\n<p>The Biden State Department also pursued what one official described as efforts at <em>queering the map<\/em>. Under congressional questioning, a department official admitted the goal was to make maps more gay.<\/p>\n<h2>Europe Targeted with DEI Programming Under Biden<\/h2>\n<p>European countries were not exempt from DEI activism. Documented examples include U.S. funding for Sofia Pride in Bulgaria, LGBTQ film festivals in Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, and related cultural events across the continent.<\/p>\n<p>An LGBTQ film festival organised in Portugal in 2022 with State Department backing screened films depicting incest and paedophilia, according to the Daily Caller.<\/p>\n<p>The U.S. embassy in Berlin hosted a DEIA workshop that brought in German foreign ministry officials to exchange best practices, as reported by a participant in a public post.<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration also appointed a special envoy to advance LGBTQI+ rights, <strong>Jessica Stern<\/strong>, who engaged German and British officials on transgender policy and what she termed inclusive democracy.<\/p>\n<h2>Critics Say Ideology Undermined Diplomacy and Alienated Allies<\/h2>\n<p>Critics have long maintained that such initiatives frequently conflicted with the cultural and legal traditions of host nations, fuelled resentment, and diverted attention from essential diplomatic functions including security cooperation, trade, and countering strategic adversaries.<\/p>\n<p>European governments at the time raised little public objection. The U.S. embassy in London pointed out in August 2026 that the Liberal Democrats did not object to Biden-era grants that could have been characterised as political interference.<\/p>\n<p>The response has shifted markedly. Liberal Democrat MP <strong>Lisa Smart<\/strong> condemned a $500,000 (\u20ac433,000) embassy grant scheme promoting freedom of speech, due process, and limited government in Britain as <em>Trump&#8217;s Maga money meddling in our democracy<\/em>, in remarks to The Guardian.<\/p>\n<p>Brussels has reacted in similar fashion to a draft United Nations declaration on freedom of expression circulated by Washington and first reported by Politico, which criticises new legal and regulatory frameworks in historically democratic countries.<\/p>\n<p>EU officials interpreted that language as targeting the Digital Services Act, denouncing the American position as foreign interference and meddling.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:right\"><em>With information from <a href=\"https:\/\/brusselssignal.eu\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brussels Signal<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. State Department has eliminated a Biden-era requirement that forced American diplomats to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology in foreign policy engagements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":14736,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[3704,11573,4398,11574,5462,209],"nfg_topic":[137],"class_list":["post-14737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-biden-administration","tag-dei-policy","tag-diplomacy","tag-foreign-service","tag-state-department","tag-united-states","nfg_topic-culture-wars"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14745,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14737\/revisions\/14745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14737"},{"taxonomy":"nfg_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsfire.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nfg_topic?post=14737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}