NASA Jet Propulsion Lab Parts Ways With Top DEI Officer In Wake of Free Beacon Report
NASA’s jet propulsion laboratory has parted ways with its top diversity officer, Neela Rajendra, after the Washington Free Beacon reported that the lab had changed her title in an effort to keep her.
"Neela Rajendra is no longer working at [the Jet Propulsion Laboratory]," lab director Laurie Leshin said in an all-staff email on Thursday. "We are incredibly grateful for the lasting impact she made to our organization. We wish her the very best."
Leshin added 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.
The staffing shakeup comes a week after the Free Beacon reported that Rajendra, who has argued that deadlines undermine inclusion, had not been among the 900 workers laid off by the lab in 2024 due to budget cuts. Even after NASA axed its central diversity office in response to the Trump administration’s executive orders, the jet propulsion lab kept Rajendra on as the head of employee success, scrubbing "diversity" and "inclusion" from her title but keeping many of her duties the same. The new office, for example, would continue to oversee "affinity groups," according to a March 10 email from the lab, including the Black Excellence Strategic Team, or "B.E.S.T."
News of Rajendra’s continued employment came after a pair of NASA astronauts were stranded for nine months on the International Space Station. The debacle, which involved a faulty propulsion system, raised questions about whether the agency’s multimillion-dollar DEI budget had translated into safer spaceflight or more competent employees.
In a 2022 presentation, Rajendra criticized SpaceX’s "fast-paced" culture and "failure to promote DEI," linking those traits to the company’s high attrition rate. Three years later, it was a SpaceX capsule that rescued the stranded astronauts.
The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory did not respond to a request for comment.
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