Equity Action Plan
On his first day in office, President Biden issued Executive Order (E.O.) 13985 on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. This E.O. mandates embedding equity in government programming and decision-making processes for the leadership and staff of every department and agency in the Executive Branch to deliver tangible changes. The White House’s Domestic Policy Council charged each U.S. federal agency with forming an Agency Equity Team to implement E.O. 13985 according to their respective missions.
Inequity is a national security challenge with global consequences. The enterprise-wide implementation of E.O. 13985 is a historic shift for the U.S. Department of State, as it requires advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities across all dimensions of U.S. foreign policy and the broader foreign affairs mission. Principally, this means embedding E.O. 13985 into the our externally-facing efforts.
On behalf of Secretary Blinken, the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, Brian P. McKeon, has led the our implementation of E.O. 13985. On March 29, 2021, Deputy Secretary McKeon established our Agency Equity Team, which serves as an enterprise-wide effort to implement E.O. 13985 in our foreign affairs mission. Our Agency Equity Team has over 80 colleagues from across our institution, which includes civil service and foreign service employees, political appointees, and contracted employees. The Agency Equity Team’s objective is to identify how we can advance racial equity and support for underserved communities through U.S. foreign policy and assistance, public engagements and exchanges, grants, procurement, contracts, and consular services. Our Equity Action Plan provides a roadmap for the U.S. Department of State to generate better-informed policies, programs, and processes to address barriers to equity worldwide and achieve our foreign policy goals. This includes sustained engagement with individuals from marginalized racial and ethnics groups and other underserved communities domestically and overseas.
Discover More
White House Equity Microsite
Explore the findings from the year-long equity process agencies have engaged in, as well as executive summaries of the equity action plans submitted by the largest Federal agencies.
Performance.gov Equity Microsite
Find all agency equity action plans, links to agency equity pages, and other equity-related public documents.