The religious leader of the Department of Labor was now also responsible for enforcing civil rights

The person who drives the Ministry of Labor controversial Monthly worship services He now took over one of the agency’s most important offices.

Kenneth Wolf, director of the Department of Labor’s Religious Center, now also leads the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), the office charged with making sure this is the case. Federal contractors Compliance with anti-discrimination laws. Wolf’s appointment was quietly announced earlier this month, after the agency released its proposed 2027 budget in April, which would eliminate the office entirely.

Because it oversees federal contractors, OFCCP had jurisdiction over “roughly 20 to 25 percent of the American workforce,” says Kerr Bickerstaff, who worked as a lawyer for the Labor Department for 16 years before leaving at the end of former President Joe Biden’s term in January 2025. OFCCP has hired labor economists and statisticians who can examine workforce data for discrimination, and whose lawyers can take companies to court. “OFCCP can obtain settlements on behalf of an entire class of people, and it can seek changes to company policies and practices to eliminate discrimination,” says Bickerstaff.

For many years, it was the agency’s primary mechanism for enforcing civil rights laws.

However, under President Donald Trump, OFCCP has lost a significant number of employees Resignations and Reductions in strength. In one of his first acts in 2025, Trump signed a document Executive order Titled “End Unlawful Discrimination and Restore Merit-Based Opportunity,” which ordered all agencies to end all “diversity, equity, and inclusion” actions within government and “combat unlawful private sector preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.” This significantly weakened OFCCP’s enforcement capabilities. last Executive order The March 2026 website, titled “Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors,” requires federal contractors not to engage in any DEI activity.

Proposed new DOL Budget 2027 He cites DEI’s Executive Order of 2025 as a reason to rescind OFCCP, writing that it is “responsible for enforcing some of these deceptive activities, and is transferring its remaining legal program areas to the newly created Office for Civil Rights.”

“Regulatory consolidation is not a bad thing in theory,” says one DOL employee who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “But it is done to serve a clear agenda that upends the idea of ​​civil rights.”

The Labor Department did not respond to questions about whether Wolf would have a leadership role in the Office for Civil Rights once that merger occurs.

According to his LinkedIn, Wolf’s experience is primarily in communications. He previously worked as a speechwriter for a Republican congressman until 2003, before working in the Office of Communications at the Department of Health and Human Services. He didn’t mention any legal experience, which was a red flag for Bickerstaffy: “I think every former OFCCP director, and certainly the ones I’ve worked with, had a legal background, specifically at least some sort of background in civil rights law,” the former Labor Department lawyer says.

The Department of Labor did not respond to questions about the qualifications Wolf must have to lead the office, or what his role will be in the liquidation process over the next year.

Before he took on his new role, Wolf was one of them Many directors of faith centers Through the government that hosts monthly worship services. At one worship service, the Rev. Leon Benjamin, a former Republican congressional candidate, told staff that their mission was to “make America understand that (work) is something God expects us to do.”

DOL employees who She spoke to WIRED They said at the time that the worship rituals held during the workday made them uncomfortable.

There appears to be one type of discrimination the Labor Department is still paying close attention to: In April, the agency Announce It will partner with the Department of Justice to “eliminate anti-Christian bias.” Earlier this year, the agency announced Tool released Summarizes each state’s laws regarding religious discrimination in the workplace.