The president moved to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs throughout the federal government with a flurry of executive orders, upending decades of policy.

Lyndon Johnson’s Executive Order 11246, which required racially diverse hiring from federal contractors, had survived five Republican presidents. It couldn’t survive Trump, who erased it with a command to end “illegal preferences and discrimination” across the government.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued an executive order titled “ Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity ,” banning affirmative action and racial preferencing, including “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs, in federal contracting and publicly-funded universities.