Kenneth Wolfe leads the worship.
Now, he’s also leading the enforcement.
Or at least, he was.
Kenneth Wolfe, the man behind the Department of Labor’s (DOL) faith center and its controversial monthly services, is the new face of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The OFCCP. That’s the office charged with ensuring federal contractors play nice with anti-discrimination laws. His appointment? Quiet. Announced earlier this month. Just after the agency dropped its proposed 2027 plan to shut the whole thing down.
Think about the scale for a second.
The OFCCP watched over 20 to 25% of the entire American workforce. Keir Bickerstaffe knows the stats. He spent sixteen years as a DOL attorney, leaving when Joe Biden’s term ended in January 2025 under the new Trump administration. Before that? The office was a hammer. They had economists. Statisticians. Lawyers who actually dragged companies to court.
“The OFCCP could get settlements for entire classes of people,” Bickerstaffe says. “Force companies to change their policies to stop discrimination.”
It was the agency’s primary weapon for civil rights.
Then came Donald Trump.
First, the bleeding. Employees quit. Or got fired. Reductions in force hit hard. Then came the orders. In early 2025, an executive decree titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination” ordered all federal agencies to kill their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs. Call it illegal discrimination, they said. Call it merit. Whatever. A follow-up in March 202 barred federal contractors from running any DEI programs at all.
The axe has fallen on the office itself now.
The 2027 budget wants to erase the OFCCP entirely, blaming that 2025 executive order for creating “misguided activities.” The remaining bits of the program are getting shoved into a new, vaguely defined “Office of Civil Rights.”
An anonymous DOL staffer told WIRED the consolidation isn’t inherently evil, in theory. But the execution?
“It’s being done in service of clear agenda that inverts civil rights.”
So, who is leading the charge into the unknown? Wolfe doesn’t seem built for it.
Check his LinkedIn. Speechwriting for a Republican congressman back to 2003. Communications work at Health and Human Services after that. No legal background. Bickerstaffe finds this glaring.
“I believe every prior director had a legal background,” the former attorney says. “Specifically, civil rights law.”
The DOL isn’t talking about Wolfe’s qualifications. They didn’t respond when asked what role he’ll play during the office’s wind-down over the next twelve months. They didn’t confirm if he’ll lead the new civil rights office once the consolidation happens.
Wolfe isn’t entirely new to this space, though.
He’s the guy running those faith center meetings across government agencies. At one such service, Pastor Leon Benjamin — a former Republican candidate for Congress — told staff that God expects them to work. It was framed as spiritual guidance. It took place during paid hours. Several employees told WIRED they felt uncomfortable. Uneasy, even.
Irony isn’t lost on everyone.
There’s only one type of discrimination the DOL seems eager to protect.
In April, they partnered with the Department of Justice. Goal? “Eradicate anti-Christian bias.” They also released a guide earlier this year summarizing state laws on religious workplace discrimination. The signal seems clear: some rights get prioritized, while the office responsible for enforcing the rest is being dismantled by a man with no legal experience, hired by an administration explicitly hostile to the agency’s founding purpose.
Who will watch the watchmen, when the watchmen are gone?
Nobody, apparently.
- A DOGE Affiliate Takes Login.gov: Greg Hogan is now running the US government’s ID platform as driver’s licenses and passports get merged, creating what insiders call “a national ID.”
- Trump Chases the Vaper Vote: The White House claims his pro-vape stance rests on “gold standard science.” It feels more like signaling to non-voters buying widely available products.
- Zambia’s Censorship Chills RightsCon: The world’s largest digital rights conference got canceled. Organizers said they had to exclude Taiwanese attendees to keep the event going.
- FTC Targets Trans Rights: New hires and investigations suggest a push to penalize gender-affirming care for kids and those who support it.
- The Staged Assassination Myth Persists: Despite zero evidence, large chunks of the right and left still believe the two assassination attempts on Trump were put on.
- 4chan’s Deepfake Abuse: Misogynist communities on 4chan are collaborating on nonconsensual nudifying images, escalating a digital form of sexual abuse.
- DOGE Engineer Starts Defense Startup: Ethan Shaotran, a young DOGE affiliate, describes Blitz Industries in an internal email as a “defense company backed by big names.”
- Election Season in Trumpworld: With Thomas Massie out of the way, Republican strategists are looking at Texas, California, and Maine for their next targets.
- Deadly ICE Trainer: David Norman, who once called himself “a fucking savage,” now runs a firearms training firm for Homeland Security after involvement in at least four deadly shootings as a police officer.
- DHS Goes After a Canadian on Google: Homeland Security demanded user data for a man living abroad over posts criticizing ICE killings, using an antiquated 1930 trade law.
- California’s AI Job Proposal: Candidate Tom Steyer is pushing for a jobs guarantee for workers pushed out by artificial intelligence, though the chances look slim.
- USAID’s Quiet Execution: A whistleblower says political appointees wanted a drawdown, while DOGE wanted to execute the agency. It was worse than expected.
