Trump Admin’s New ‘Loyalty Test’ Hiring Plan Nixes Demographic Data Collection

The plan asks new federal applicants to describe their favorite of the president’s executive orders.

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Evan Vucci/AP

The government’s human resources department, the Office of Personnel Management, is directing federal employers to keep employee demographic data secret.

In its new “Merit Hiring Plan” published late last week, OPM told agencies to “cease developing or disseminating information regarding the composition of the agency’s workforce based on race, sex, color, religion or national origin.”

The memo also requires new applicants to answer questions about how they’d advance President Donald Trump’s agenda, a move Democrats panned earlier this week as a “loyalty test.”