After a remarkably successful effort to extinguish diversity, equity and inclusion programs at US employers, federal officials are stepping up their push against corporate America’s remaining DEI initiatives.
Last week it was a review of Walt Disney Co. television station licenses over the company’s discrimination policies, following a Jimmy Kimmel joke that drew ire from the president. Before that, it was a $17 million settlement with IBM regarding its DEI practices, and a lawsuit against Nike Inc. for allegedly not cooperating with an investigation into bias against White workers. In February, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sent a letter to Fortune 500 CEOs and their boards reaffirming its mission to root out discrimination.
Executives are now calling lawyers, consultants and conservative activists to confirm the changes they’ve made are sufficient to avoid further scrutiny, said Johnny Taylor, CEO of SHRM, an HR industry association. Minority supplier programs have become small-business supplier programs. Gender or racial employee quotas have been scrapped. Gone are most diversity metrics for executive pay. And these days corporate leaders are more willing to hear out DEI critics among their shareholder base, conservative activist investors say.
Casual observers might have concluded that the push to eradicate DEI would wind down after victories by self-described “anti-woke” activists and the Trump White House in 2025. Responding to executive orders issued at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, federal contractors disavowed DEI at every level, reversing policies of using employees’ preferred pronouns, among other actions. In his February State of the Union address, Trump declared that his administration “ended DEI in America.” And a month later, legal strategist Edward Blum who led the successful effort to ban affirmative action in college admissions said he was no longer able to find evidence of minority-only internships at the country’s law firms despite an ongoing “hunt.”
The Trump administration isn’t done, and officials have been explicit that they’re looking at situations where they believe White men, US citizens and Christians have been put at a disadvantage.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas has warned businesses that her agency is on watch, following a video she posted in December specifically looking for instances of bias against White men.
The EEOC in March announced a $500,000 settlement with Planned Parenthood of Illinois related to DEI training. Shortly after, Trump offered a fresh executive order against federal contractors who might be concealing ongoing DEI programs, and his economic advisors released research claiming that DEI has been a drag on America’s GDP. The EEOC has issued a steady stream of press releases calling attention to cases focused on anti-Christian bias and other groups who have historically been in the majority in the US.
“Chair Lucas and the Trump Administration are ensuring all Americans are treated fairly by rigorously enforcing civil rights laws, ending illegal DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination, and upholding the Constitution,” White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said in a statement.
The EEOC’s posture is tempered by the reality that the agency is much smaller than it used to be because of recent federal staffing cuts, said Jenny Yang, a partner at law firm Outten and Golden LLP, who chaired the commission from 2014 to 2017. The agency will have to carefully pick cases to pursue, she said.
“I do think they are trying to blow up a lot of these investigations” to make them seem more substantive and national in scope, she said. But that is still a cost that companies are hoping to avoid, even if they are unlikely to be violating laws, she said.
For now, Yang said the agency may be overcoming staffing shortages by requiring companies to provide more documents than in the past.
In its lawsuit against Nike, and a November filing against Northwestern Mutual Insurance Co., the EEOC has asked companies to turn over more materials for its investigations. Northwestern last week asked a federal judge to block the EEOC subpoena. Nike said it has already submitted thousands of documents and continues to cooperate.
In a statement, Nike said it is committed to fair and lawful employment practices, including those related to discrimination. “We believe our programs and practices are consistent with those obligations and take these matters seriously,” it said.
The question of exactly what counts as “illegal DEI” hasn’t been adjudicated by the US Supreme Court. In the meantime, companies are left to decide the level of risk they are willing to take.
Salesforce, for example, agreed to stop using the civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center’s criteria to decide whether to match employee’s charitable donations. (The Justice Department has since charged the SPLC with bank fraud, though the group has disputed the claims.) Apple, meanwhile, affirmed to conservative investors it took steps to block access to pornographic images and videos from children who use its messaging apps, said Isaac Willour, who directs corporate engagement at Bowyer Research, one of the firms helping investors with conservative proxy proposals and corporate engagement. Salesforce didn’t respond to requests for comment. Apple had no comment.
Some companies have resisted pressure to change their practices. Costco defended its programs against conservative activists last year, rejecting requests to detail the risks of its DEI efforts. Colgate-Palmolive Co. in February told a conservative shareholder group that it intends to defend using race, gender and sexual orientation as criteria for identifying future board members, even as Bloomberg and others reported Goldman Sachs Group is considering ending the practice.
Other companies have been working quietly to dial back language around race and equity in company documents and regulatory filings. When the conservative nonprofit National Legal and Policy Center said in February that American Express Co., Deere & Co. and Johnson & Johnson had ended a practice of including DEI criteria in selecting board members, none of the companies commented publicly.
Conservative investor groups opposed to DEI are also applying pressure to companies, whether through shareholder proposals or negotiations intended to head off formal proxy votes.
“Companies overall have been much more willing to talk,” said Tim Schwarzenberger, portfolio manager and director of corporate engagement for Inspire Investing, which manages $4.2 billion and is the largest provider of Christian exchange-traded funds, and opposes many DEI practices.
In the last several months, Schwarzenberger and his allies have had conversations with companies including Nike, McKesson Corp. and First Citizens BancShares Inc. The discussions have covered a range of topics including LGBTQ policies, religious accommodations and DEI metrics in board appointments, he said.
Inspire Investing prepared about 40 proposals asking companies to reconsider programs related to DEI and other conservative causes at annual meetings this year. About 60% of those have since been withdrawn, including at McKesson, after companies agreed to make sufficient changes, he said. McKesson had no comment.
Not all of the discussions have led to action. Nike, for example, hasn’t responded formally to Inspire’s request that it end support for the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ non-profit; and First Citizens recommended a no vote on a proxy-ballot proposal that the company prepare a report assessing the cost of not having faith-based employee resource groups. (First Citizens shareholders will vote on the proposal on Monday. The bank acknowledged receipt of a request for comment, but did not respond.)
Bowyer Research’s Willour also found that the number of companies willing to engage with conservative groups and make changes has increased dramatically. The firm is working on 79 proposals this year, including the Nike proposal with Inspire. So far the discussions have led to 40 proposals being withdrawn because of agreements to make changes or continue discussions, according to Willour. Last year, they were only able to make such agreements on nine of 36 proposals, he said.
Robby Starbuck, the conservative influencer whose social media campaigns have pressured companies like Walmart Inc. and Harley-Davidson Inc. to publicly back off their DEI policies, said he has been advising the White House on its continued workplace push and has heard from companies on avoiding regulator scrutiny.
Starbuck said he still gets tips from employees about potentially problematic situations at work, such as when companies sponsor an employee networking group for Muslim workers but not one for Christians, or complaints that one group is getting more funding than others.
Following the EEOC letter to businesses in February, Starbuck offered his view to government officials in a Zoom meeting. Attendees representing federal agencies huddled in a crowded White House conference room to listen, he said. He told them separating people by race can lead to one group being favored unlawfully over another.
“You can’t do half a revolution,” Starbuck said. “You have to go all the way with things.”
Top Photo: WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 30: U.S. President Donald Trump talks to reporters from the Resolute Desk after signing an executive order to appoint the deputy administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration in the Oval Office at the White House on January 30, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump also signed a memorandum ordering an immediate assessment of aviation safety and ordering an elevation of what he called competence over D.E.I. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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