Executive summary
On May 29, 2026, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) proposed a Regulation for Federal Financial Assistance that seeks, among other things, to ensure that federal agencies do not use unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology as a basis for awarding taxpayer funding to projects. While that proposed rule represents a necessary step toward the Trump Administration’s laudable goal of restoring lawful, neutral, and merit based criteria to federal grantmaking, this report identifies a practical gap that agencies and recipients could otherwise exploit in spite of this and other positive efforts: the risk that recipients of federal funding will use intersectionality and related identity-politics frameworks to preserve identity-based preferences under newer, more technical terminology.
The spending record makes the policy concern concrete. This report identifies nearly 250 federal award records on USAspending.gov using the keyword “intersectionality,” with approximately $230 million in reported obligations and $140 million in reported outlays, subject to ordinary USAspending.gov updates and reconciliation. The awards show that intersectionality has moved from academic theory into taxpayer-funded programs, including research, training, outreach, equity measurement, technical assistance, institutional-change projects, and program design.
The response should be targeted and practical. OMB should clarify that neither agencies nor recipients of federal funding may use protected characteristics directly, through proxies, or through intersectional composite categories when the practical effect is preferential or adverse treatment.
In addition to such clarification by OMB, President Trump should issue an executive order, building on existing executive orders and policies addressing DEI, unlawful discrimination, and merit-based federal action, to close the intersectionality loophole expressly. Agencies should then issue conforming guidance documents so grant officers, contracting officers, program staff, reviewers, auditors, and recipients understand that intersectionality and equivalent identity-stacking frameworks cannot be used to evade neutral, merit-based rules.
