The chief DEI officer at NASA‘s jet propulsion lab was fired after her title was changed to hide her from Donald Trump‘s war on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Trump and ‘First Buddy’ Elon Musk have been happy warriors against DEI, working to rid the federal government of what they call unfair practices.
Neela Rajendra had run the lab’s central diversity office, at one point arguing that having deadlines for work projects undermine inclusion, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
However, amid a series of 900 job cuts due to budgeting issues made in 2024, the diversity office was cut but Rajendra was mysteriously kept on.
She’d had all references to DEI washed from from her title but reportedly kept many of the same job duties as ‘head of employee success.’
In early March, Rajendra was still in charge of the lab’s ‘Black Excellence Strategic Team.’
However, earlier this week in response to reports she was being protected from Trump administration DEI cuts, the lab parted ways with Rajendra.
‘Neela Rajendra is no longer working at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory]. We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization. We wish her the very best,’ lab director Laurie Leshin wrote in an all-staff email on Thursday.
Neela Rajendra (pictured), chief DEI officer at NASA’s jet propulsion lab was fired after her title was changed to hide her from Donald Trump’s war on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives
Trump (pictured) and ‘First Buddy’ Elon Musk have been happy warriors against DEI, working to rid the federal government of what they call unfair practices
She also said that the new DEI-lite Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success Rajendra was set to run was being relocated under human resources.
The news comes as NASA has ended its diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEI) programs after all federal agencies were directed to ‘terminate’ the initiatives.
Staff received an email in late January from acting administrator Janet Petro, which said the space agency is ‘taking steps to close all agency DEIA offices and end all DEIA-related contracts in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders.’
The order is titled ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing and Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.’
NASA’s email admitted that ‘these programs divided Americans by race, wasted taxpayer dollars, and resulted in shameful discrimination.’
The space agency has spent at least $22.4 million annually on such programs.
DailyMail.com had uncovered millions of taxpayer dollars were dished out for DEI data analytics and to help the agency ’embark on a venture to incorporate and deeply engrain diversity, inclusion, equity and accessibility in the culture and business.’
Petro, who is the first woman to lead NASA as its acting administrator, also urged staff to report colleagues who have attempted to disguise DEI programs with coded language.
Earlier this week in response to reports she was being protected from Trump administration DEI cuts, the lab parted ways with Rajendra
The news comes as NASA has ended its diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEI) programs after all federal agencies were directed to ‘terminate’ the initiatives
‘There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information,’ the email reads. ‘However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.’
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the US federal government’s human resources agency, has also created an email account to collect reports of suspected DEI initiatives.
Kyle Sorensen, a software engineer who has worked for NASA, told DailyMail.com: ‘I am really happy that they banned these programs.
‘I am even happier that the Trump admin was smart enough to know that the organization would just try to rename themselves.’
While the acting administrator’s email appeared to criticize the DEI initiatives, the same message was sent to all federal agencies to pass to their employees.
The Trump administration sent the letter to all heads and acting heads of government agencies in its first week in office, informing them all federal employees in DEI roles must be placed on paid leave.
The letter also demanded all public DEI-focused web pages be taken offline, which was around the same time NASA sent the email to staff and removed its DEI website.
The space agency’s page now features a ‘404’ error with the message: ‘The cosmic object you were looking for has disappeared beyond the event horizon.’
Rajendra had run the lab’s central diversity office, at one point arguing that having deadlines for work projects undermine inclusion
The Trump administration sent the letter to all heads and acting heads of government agencies in its first week in office, informing them all federal employees in DEI roles must be placed on paid leave
An employee shared on X that they ‘had DEI training and it was part of the employee reviews.’
While Nancy Vreils, quality records manager at NASA, shared: ‘DEI has ruined NASA. Innovation is non-existent.’
NASA has engaged in DEI efforts for over a decade, first creating the Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Implementation Plan in 2012.
The agency’s DEI spending from 2022 to the present has largely focused on environmental programs.
More than $1 million in grants went to ‘assessing environmental justice in air quality, ‘advancing environmental justice in Los Angeles and ‘examining environmental justice through open source cloud native tools.’
One grant, surpassing $150,00, was given to Cleveland State University to improve monitoring and management of urban tree equity.
Oregon State University was awarded a commitment of more than $450,000 to study refugee farming decisions in Uganda.
The grant’s description showed that the results of the project will ‘directly support place-based information of refugee self-sufficiency that is called for in Uganda’s refugee response plan.’
It’s unclear how the findings would advance NASA’s aims.
