WASHINGTON, D.C. — Kenneth Wolfe was appointed director of the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs earlier this month in an announcement made with limited public disclosure. Wolfe, who also serves as director of the department's faith center, takes on the role as the agency is slated for elimination under the department's proposed 2027 budget.

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs is tasked with ensuring that federal contractors comply with anti-discrimination laws. For many years, it served as the Department of Labor's primary mechanism for enforcing civil rights laws. The office employed labor economists and statistical experts who could examine workforce data for discrimination, and its lawyers could take companies to court.

"The OFCCP could get settlements on behalf of an entire class of people, it could seek changes to company policies and practices to eliminate discrimination," said Keir Bickerstaffe, a former Department of Labor attorney. The office had jurisdiction over roughly 20 to 25 percent of the American workforce, according to Bickerstaffe. "I believe every prior OFCCP director, certainly the ones I worked under, had a legal background and specifically at least some sort of background in civil rights law," he said.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Wolfe's experience is primarily in communications, including work in the office of communications at the Department of Health and Human Services and an earlier role as a speechwriter for a Republican congressman until 2003. The profile does not list any legal experience.

In April 2026, the Department of Labor released its proposed 2027 budget, which would eliminate the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The proposal cites a 2025 executive order on diversity, equity, and inclusion as the reason, stating that the office was responsible for enforcing those activities, and calls for transferring its remaining statutory program areas to the newly created Office of Civil Rights.

In 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity," which ordered all agencies to end diversity, equity, and inclusion actions within government and combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities. In March 2026, an additional executive order titled "Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors" was signed, requiring federal contractors not to engage in any DEI activity. Under Trump, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs lost a substantial number of employees to resignations and staff reductions.

Before assuming his new role, Wolfe was one of several faith center directors across government hosting monthly worship services. Earlier in 2026, the Department of Labor released a tool that summarizes each state's laws regarding religious discrimination in the workplace, and in April 2026 the department announced it would partner with the Department of Justice to eradicate anti-Christian bias.