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NASA Watch is reporting based on internal sources at NASA Headquarters, that LGBTQIA+ iconography is no longer allowed within the agency as a new unwritten policy.
The new restrictions are effectively banning flags, lapel pins, lanyards, Microsoft Teams backgrounds, clothing, and stickers that have LGBTQIA+ pride iconography. Consequences for violating these restrictions will result in the employee in question being placed on administrative leave, whether they are LGBTQIA+ or not.
What this new informal policy is demanding is a blatant violation of the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the Constitution of the United States. Additionally, it also violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Alongside this policy, a day earlier NASA sent out an agency-wide email demanding the removal of pronouns from all official emails, statements, and messages alongside those from agency contractors. Any employee that currently has pronouns as part of their emails will have them scrubbed from NASA systems within 90 days.
As part of outright stupid and bigoted executive orders from Trump's second term in the White House, NASA has been systematically erasing all mentions of diversity, accessibility, inclusivity, or equity. This includes posts celebrating NASA's first people of color and female astronauts.
Erasure of what NASA called DEIA (diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility) began very quickly into Trump's new term with memos quickly sent off encouraging agency employees to report one another, as well as contractors, to report each other for alleged DEIA. These policies were focused on talent cultivation to ensure the space agency had a wide range of talent available to hire from nationwide. Without these programs, NASA now has a weaker knowledge base to draw from for its programs.
In its past, several of NASA's achievements would not have been possible without figures from DEIA backgrounds. Including the ability to send the first Americans into orbit, the development of the software needed to land humans on the Moon, and the technology needed for the Hubble Space Telescope to operate. NASA has also had many capable astronauts who are people of color, a woman, or queer.
