NASA ousts Indian-origin DEI chief Neela Rajendra as title tweak fails to dodge Trump executive order

NASA’s gush actuation laboratory has reportedly ousted its Indian-origin top diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) officer, Neela Rajendra, despite changing her title in a bid to keep her after shuttering its diversity department in March, following US President Trump’s executive order banning the programmes in executive branch agencies.

In March, Washington Free Beacon reported that the lab had changed Neela Rajendra's title in an effort to keep her.

An all-staff mail by lab director Laurie Leshin last Thursday cited in the report stated that Neela Rajendra no longer works at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

"Neela Rajendra is no longer working at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory]," Laurie Leshin's mail read. "We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization. We wish her the very best," it added.

Laurie Leshin also informed in the mail that the newly formed Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success—intended to replace the DEI team Rajendra had led—would be moved to the Office of Human Resources.

On opening NASA jet propulsion laboratory's ‘Who we are’ section its website, the page about Neela Rajendra failed to open and read “404 Page not found”.

The development follows reports from a week earlier suggesting that Neela Rajendra was not among the 900 employees laid off by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2024 amid budget cuts.

Although NASA shut down its central diversity office in line with executive orders from the Trump administration, the lab retained Neela Rajendra in a rebranded role as head of "employee success." While references to “diversity” and “inclusion” were removed from her title, many of her responsibilities remained unchanged, as per the Washington Free Beacon report.

According to a March 10 email from the lab, her office was supposed to continue overseeing initiatives like “affinity groups,” including the Black Excellence Strategic Team (B.E.S.T.).

Neela Rajendra’s continued employment drew attention in the wake of a high-profile incident in which two NASA astronauts were stranded on the International Space Station for nine months due to a faulty propulsion system. The situation sparked debate over whether the agency’s significant DEI spending had contributed to improvements in safety or performance.

Back in 2022, Neela Rajendra had criticised SpaceX for its “fast-paced” environment and lack of emphasis on DEI, citing those issues as factors behind the company’s high turnover rate. Ironically, it was a SpaceX capsule that ultimately brought the stranded astronauts back to Earth.

The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory has not commented yet.

In March, Donald Trump signed an executive order for “restoring the values of individual dignity, hard work, and excellence,” under which the President signed a memorandum removing what White House termed as “radical Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) from the Foreign Service”.

“US government will not base Foreign Service recruitment, hiring, promotion, or retention decisions on an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, nor embed discriminatory equity ideology within any element of the Foreign Service,” the order read.

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