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The Trump administration has shut down the troops in the Bureau of Veterans Affairs, created under President Joe Biden, to address the gap in the way the federal government provides disability compensation to military service members.
The closure of the Veterans Benefits Bureau of Equity Guarantees effectively hinders internal efforts in Virginia, investigating and eliminating years of racial inequality recognized by the department itself.
According to an email obtained by Propublica, the office was eliminated as part of the Trump administration’s removal, which was heavily intended to address diversity, equity or inclusion. However, according to some VA sources, the office doesn’t focus solely on race, taking case studies for various veterans to ensure that appropriate interests are not rejected, such as age, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, and geographical location.
Rep. Mark Takano, a California Democrat, criticized the Trump administration’s actions as “excessive” and “reckless.”
“The closure of the OEA will undoubtedly have a disastrous effect on the care we provide to our veterans,” Takano, former chairman and now a member of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, said in a statement to Procublica. “The office made easy access to care and benefits for minority veterans. The closure directly affects the care and benefits received by minority veterans.”
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Richard Brookshire, co-founder of the Black Veteran Project, a nonprofit that focuses on correcting discrimination faced by black veterans, reflects Takano’s concerns.
“This is the first step towards attacking the second largest agency in the federal government,” he said. “The outcome is disastrous, widely reaching and fatal.”
VA spokesman Peter Casperowitz refused to say whether the agency would continue to study racial disparities. However, he emphasized in a statement that VA Secretary Douglas Collins “is treating all veterans and beneficiaries fairly and equally, the Equity Guarantees is no longer necessary.”
He added: “The money saved by closing the office to improve the healthcare, benefits and services of veterans is redirected. VAs will always fulfill their obligation to provide veterans, families, caregivers and survivors with the healthcare and benefits they have acquired. That’s a promise.”
The VA has grown significantly under the Biden administration, and was added to strengthen capacity by tens of thousands of employees in connection with the passage of the agreement law. The 2022 law expanded the healthcare and benefits of an estimated 3.5 million veterans exposed to toxic substances from burning pits and other chemicals.
The Biden administration has also created the OEA and several other initiatives to help analyze and correct discrimination in the delivery of healthcare, benefits and other services. These moves were seen as direct responses to long-standing complaints by minority veterans.
The OEA closure is just one of several devastating staff cuts at the VA in recent weeks. Around 2,400 VA employees have lost their positions since the Trump administration began to significantly cut the federal workforce.
The sector currently employs around 470,000 workers. Kasperowicz said the administrative plan would cut almost 15% of the workforce, reducing the total to around 398,000.
Workers assigned to the OEA were notified via email on February 14th, informing them that their positions would soon be over and that their offices were “liquidated.” The notification went to almost every employee in the office, effectively disbanding the unit, a source familiar with the shooting told Propublica.
The administration reversed at least some ends later that month, according to a news report obtained by Propublica. According to a department-savvy source who spoke about the anonymity status for fear of retaliation, workers who are obsessed with the OEA are placed on administrative leave due to the possibility of reallocation within the VA or another federal department.
“But even if they’re reassigned, it won’t become an OEA,” said an official familiar with the move. “It definitely disappeared.”
Black veterans and their supporters have long complained of disparities in how claims are handled. The ongoing lawsuit filed by the National Council of Veterans for legal relief against the government has given the suspicion a new life.
The group’s lawsuits were strengthened by data excavated through a Free Information Law request from the Black Veterans Project. This found that VAs were far more likely to reject applications for service-related disorders by white veterans.
Federal lawyers have said that the judges overseeing the case to dismiss the claims, and that the VA Director has jurisdiction to determine disputes over award benefits, and that the court lacks jurisdiction to hear them.
The 2023 US Government Accountability Office report also concluded there was a gap. The department found that it approved compensation applications for service-related disorders such as hearing loss, impaired limb movement and post-traumatic stress by black veterans at a lower rate than veterans of other races.
The report found that between 2010 and 2020, the approval rate for benefits applications made by white male veterans was 3% to 22% higher than that of black male veterans with selected medical conditions.
The OEA’s end is just part of a continuing rollback of the racial equity program that the Trump administration calls “radical and useless.”
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Since Trump took office, the web page detailing the VA’s work to address equity and diversity appears to have been scrubbed from its website. In January, the administration fired the head of an internal advisory group formed to address the concerns and needs of minority and female veterans.
One of these groups, the Minority Veterans Center, worked with the OEA to address racial disparities in disability compensation. Between 2013 and 2018, the advisory group raised five concerns over a decline in approval rates for VA leadership among black veterans, according to the National Council of Veterans for Legal Relief Litigation.
The hopeful Mariella Roca of the former Republican Congress took over as director of the advisory group last week. It is unclear what specific strategies the group will pursue to promote the needs and concerns of minority veterans under new leadership. Roca did not respond to requests for comment.
