Trump harshly fired the top-ranking woman in the military as part of his diversity, equity, and inclusion overhaul.

President Donald Trump dismissed Admiral Linda L. Fagan, the Coast Guard commandant, shortly after assuming office. However, Admiral Fagan was unaware of this decision until she attended the Commander in Chief Ball later that day.

It was during the ball, while waiting to take a photo with Trump, that Fagan discovered she had been terminated. A military source, speaking to the New York Times, revealed this information. Admiral Fagan chose not to comment on the matter.

The Department of Homeland Security informed the Coast Guard leadership about Fagan’s dismissal through a bulletin sent the day after the Presidential Inauguration.

‘She served a long and illustrious career, and I thank her for her service to our nation,’ the message read from acting DHS Secretary Benjamine C. Huffman said shortly.

The department revealed in a statement that Admiral Fagan was removed because of ‘leadership deficiencies, operational failures and inability to advance the strategic objectives of the U.S. Coast Guard’ including a failure to secure the border and stop drugs from entering the United States.

The statement also accused Fagan of failing to recruit and retain personnel and had an ‘excessive focus’ on DEI programs.

Admiral Kevin Lunday, Coast Guard’s No. 2 in command, was named acting Coast Guard commandant in her stead.

Biden nominated Fagan as Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard in April 2022, as her supporters hailed her as the first female admiral in a position of leadership of one of the armed forces branches. 

Admiral Linda Fagan speaks after taking the oath as commandant of the US Coast Guard

Admiral Linda Fagan greets US President Joe Biden during the US Coast Guard change of command ceremony

Trump moved quickly on his pledge to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies in the federal government as he is set to lay off all DEI hires within 24 hours. 

The new Trump administration sent a letter to all heads and acting heads of government agencies on Tuesday, informing them all federal employees in DEI roles must be placed on paid leave by 5 pm Wednesday. 

All DEI offices in federal agencies are also being shuttered in the move, which comes after Trump signed an anti-DEI executive order in front of a cheering crowd at his inauguration on Monday. 

In a letter first obtained by CBS News, the agencies were ordered to ‘take prompt actions’ against all departments ‘focusing exclusively on DEI initiatives and programs.’ 

The letter also demands all public DEI focused webpages be taken offline, and orders employees within the departments to report ‘any efforts to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.’ 

Any employees that are aware of ‘coded or imprecise language’ intended to keep DEI programs alive but do not report them within 10 days are warned of ‘adverse consequences.’ 

Trump’s executive order, titled ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions’, directly reverses a DEI executive order enacted by President Biden on his first day in office four years ago. 

Tuesday’s order concludes: ‘These programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.’  

Donald Trump quickly made good on his executive order cutting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in the federal government by putting all DEI hires on paid leave 

After all DEI hires are placed on leave by 5pm Wednesday, agencies are ordered to develop plans to lay off each employee that was hired under DEI policies, with a deadline of next Friday given to develop a list for a ‘reduction in force action.’ 

Agencies must then report to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on ‘all steps taken’ to remove DEI programs by January 23, including a complete list of all employees that had been in DEI offices as of November 5, 2024. 

A written plan for firing all DEI employees must then be submitted to the OPM by January 31, 2025, including a list of all ‘contract descriptions or personnel position descriptions that were changed since November 5, 2024’ to conceal their DEI intentions. 

The executive order slammed the ‘infiltration’ of DEI programs into the federal government, and cited the executive order signed by Biden on the first day of his presidency that aimed to tackle racial inequalities in government. 

Another similar executive order signed by Trump on Tuesday also rolled back affirmative action in federal contracting, reversing a longstanding order first signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. 

Trump’s anti-DEI executive order directly reverses one signed by President Biden on the first day of his presidency four years ago aimed at tackling racial inequalities in government (pictured signing the order on January 20, 2021) 

Protestors seen outside the Supreme Court in June 2023 after the court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, one of the first major hits to DEI practices under the Biden administration 

‘Today, roughly 60 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, critical and influential institutions of American society, including the Federal Government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, large commercial airlines, law enforcement agencies, and institutions of higher education have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion,’ the memo read. 

Trump’s order argued that DEI programs ‘not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity.’ 

‘They deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system,’ the memo continued.