The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) cancelled an upcoming internship program after outgoing Biden officials removed signs of “diversity” elements, according to emails obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The FTA changed the name of its “Diversity in Federal Transit” internship program to “BOOST” sometime in 2024 before President Donald Trump returned to office in January, archived webpages show. That switch, however, did not spare the program from the Republican president’s reshaping of the federal bureaucracy.
“We are writing to inform you that the Summer 2025 Federal Transit Administration Building Opportunities and Outcomes for Students in Transit (FTA BOOST) Internship Program has been cancelled due to recent Executive Orders,” reads an email the DCNF obtained from the Washington Center, a nonprofit that has partnered with the FTA to recruit interns and run the program. The center sent the email on January 27 to an applicant.
A February 2024 social media post from the Federal Transit Administration encourages “students from backgrounds underrepresented in federal government” to apply for its internship program. (Instagram)
The FTA scrapped the internship “as of January 23, 2025,” according to an automatic reply the DCNF received from one email address at the Washington Center. The FTA and the Washington Center did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Trump signed day-one executive orders banning “radical and wasteful” diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the federal government and pausing all hiring of federal employees. It’s unclear which of Trump’s actions halted the FTA’s BOOST program.
“Undergraduate and graduate students from backgrounds underrepresented in federal government are encouraged to apply,” a February 2024 Instagram post from the agency reads, linking to the Washington Center. Applicants were not required to be part of an “underrepresented” group to be eligible for the summer 2025 program, but such groups were “strongly encouraged to apply,” the Washington Center’s website says.
Until Trump took office, all federal agencies were under orders from former President Joe Biden to embrace DEI and preferential policies for “underserved” groups. The Biden administration drew criticism for spending tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on diversity-related efforts that conservatives argue are wasteful, divisive or discriminatory.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg also raised eyebrows by claiming American roads were full of “racism” and pledging to spend DOT resources addressing it.
The Washington Center used the “Diversity in Federal Transit” name for the internship all the way up to October 24, less than two weeks before Trump’s reelection, and then called it by its revised name, BOOST, on Nov. 6 when Trump was declared president-elect.
The Department of Transportation (DOT), the FTA’s parent agency, said in a January 29 statement it is working to eliminate “woke” initiatives surrounding race and gender to comply with Trump’s orders.
“The Secretary signed the ‘Woke Rescission’ Memorandum, directing Secretarial Officers and Heads of Operating Administrations to identify and eliminate all Biden-era programs, policies, activities, rules, and orders that promote climate change activism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, racial equity, gender identity policies, environmental justice, and other partisan objectives,” the DOT’s statement said.
The DCNF left a voicemail with the DOT’s communications office and did not receive a response.
Trump’s agencies have also been purging webpages on DEI, gender and sexuality resources and so-called “affinity groups” for LGBTQ employees.
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