Donald Trump bans 'divisive and harmful' diversity training

Donald Trump has signed an executive order barring US government agencies and contractors from holding training sessions that teach America is “fundamentally racist or sexist”, again forcing the spotlight on cultural clashes ahead of the US election.

The executive order’s list of issues that cannot be promoted through diversity training include suggesting that someone “bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex”.

The lengthy order was signed on Tuesday and expands the US president's recent pushback on such training, now including private businesses who take up contracts with the federal government and so receive taxpayer funds.

The exact impact the order will have is unclear, with the full degree to which such concepts are being voiced currently in training unknown and much depending on how the orders will be implemented by government agencies.

It is the latest attempt by Mr Trump to frame the election in part as a battle between patriotic Republicans and left-wing radical Democrats who he claims are undermining the values the country was founded on.

In recent months Mr Trump has hit out at “indoctrination” in America’s schools, decried protesters downing statues of Confederate generals and warned in his Republican convention speech that America as it is would change forever if he loses in November.

Mr Trump tweeted about the executive order: “A few weeks ago, I banned efforts to indoctrinate government employees with divisive and harmful sex and race-based ideologies.

“Today, I've expanded that ban to people and companies that do business with our country, the United States military, government contractors, and grantees.

"Americans should be taught to take pride in our great country, and if you don’t, there’s nothing in it for you!”

A White House press release summarised the action as an attempt to “end training sessions based on race and sex stereotyping and scapegoating in the federal workforce, the Uniformed Services, and among federal contractors”.

The executive order lists examples from training done by government agencies or contractors which are deemed by the White House to be inappropriate.

At one seminar in the Treasury an argument was promoted which said “virtually all white people, regardless of how 'woke' they are, contribute to racism”, according to the order.

Training materials from a research centre for the Energy Department called Argonne National Laboratories said that racism "is interwoven into every fabric of America", the order also noted.

The US president has in recent weeks taken aim at the teaching of “critical race theory”, which emerged in the 1980s and broadly argues that racism is ingrained in American society and perpetuated by its existing structures.

Mr Trump in a speech last week called it “a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed”.

The new executive order at one point lists a string of examples of the “divisive concepts" it was seeking to bar from training. One was that “the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist”.

Another was that “an individual's moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex”.

A third was that “any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex”.

Mr Trump has at numerous times latched onto cultural issues during his presidency, such as criticising American football players who kneeled during the US national anthem or Nascar racing organisers for banning the Confederate flag.

Former political strategists have argued by doing so Mr Trump is aligning himself with his base of supporters, indicating he is on their side in such cultural battles, as well as energising them to get out to the polls at elections.

Separately, Mr Trump was on Wednesday hit by new claims in The Washington Post that he has privately made racially insensitive comments while in office.

The paper, which said it had talked to more than two dozen current and former officials, claimed the US president had said Jewish people “are only in it for themselves” and that black Americans have mainly themselves to blame in their struggle for equality.

Sarah Matthews, a White House spokeswoman, responded to the paper: “Donald Trump’s record as a private citizen and as president has been one of fighting for inclusion and advocating for the equal treatment of all. Anyone who suggests otherwise is only seeking to sow division.”