The new chair of the Federal Trade Commission has moved without delay to fulfill President Donald Trump’s goal of ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government ― and drawn brutal criticism for it from one of the agency’s five commissioners.
On Wednesday, Andrew Ferguson, Trump’s Republican pick to lead the FTC, announced that “DEI is over” at the agency, calling the diversity efforts “a scourge on our institutions.” He shuttered the commission’s DEI office and terminated its diversity council, among other quick moves.
“The Biden-Harris Administration reveled in this pernicious ideology. They encouraged it, and it has festered within the federal government for four years,” Ferguson said in a statement. He also took to X to say the FTC would do its part to “end the DEI plague.”
Then, on Thursday, the five-member commission held a procedural vote on whether to grant Ferguson the powers to come “into full compliance” with Trump’s anti-DEI orders. It passed by a vote of 2-1, with Ferguson and another Republican, Melissa Holyoak, in favor.
Two Democratic commissioners, Rebecca Slaughter and Lina Khan, its erstwhile progressive chair, did not take part, leading to a GOP majority on the vote.
The commission’s third Democrat, Alvaro Bedoya, was the lone vote against the measure and issued a withering dissent, accusing Ferguson of rushing the process.
Bedoya wrote that the FTC had important work to do in investigating and challenging anticompetitive practices by corporations. He said Ferguson “could have made his first public act” a motion along these lines, aimed at lowering prices in the grocery, construction or pharmaceutical industries, for instance.
“Chairman Ferguson could have done any number of things to actually lower the cost of living and create opportunities for American businesses and workers,” Bedoya wrote. “He did none of them. Instead, he cancelled ‘DEI.’”
He went on, “I have met with corn growers and cattlemen in Iowa. I have met with shrimpers in Biloxi. I have met with pharmacists in Knoxville, grocers in Tulsa, and patients and their doctors in Charleston, West Virginia. I met with the men who build Miami’s million-dollar skyscrapers in 110-degree heat.”
“Let me tell you what they didn’t talk about: ‘DEI.’”
Bedoya wrote that Ferguson was playing “a game for retweets on X – the kind of stunt that infuriates regular people who cannot make rent.”
Ferguson responded to Bedoya in his own statement, saying his fellow commissioner’s objections amounted to sour grapes. He wrote that Trump “campaigned openly on ending DEI” and “the American people chose him.”
Ferguson said he was simply following lawful orders from the new president.
“I get it,” he wrote. “Commissioner Bedoya prefers that one of his party’s two presidential candidates had won the election. He wishes that the federal government would continue to advance DEI ideology. He wishes that the Biden-Harris Administration were directing the Commission’s priorities rather than the Trump Administration.”
In a statement of her own, Slaughter said she had “unanswered questions” about the anti-DEI measure the chairman put to a vote, and “whether it is even necessary.” She, too, alleged Ferguson had rushed the commission to consider it on a faster timeline than normal procedures. She said she abstained because she didn’t have adequate time.
“Chairman Ferguson gets his way today,” Slaughter wrote. “In future matters, I hope that he will return to the agency’s proud tradition of regular order, adequate process and notice, consultation with career staff, and seeking bipartisan input and agreement.”
