{"id":232747,"date":"2025-07-02T19:13:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T19:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/232747\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T19:13:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T19:13:14","slug":"despite-trump-backlash-dei-rollbacks-are-slowing-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/232747\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite Trump backlash, DEI rollbacks are slowing. Here’s why."},"content":{"rendered":"

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The companies standing up to Trump on DEI<\/p>\n

Companies like Costco and Levi’s are rejecting the White House’s position on diversity, equity and inclusion.<\/p>\n

For months now, President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s threat to strip<\/a> federal contracts from corporations that stand by their diversity, equity and inclusion<\/a> initiatives has driven a sharp U-turn in corporate America, with the private sector rushing to distance itself from policies that it once trumpeted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But a new study tracking DEI changes inside the nation\u2019s biggest corporations shows the pace has slowed as the Trump administration has pivoted to other policy priorities such as immigration and tariffs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The backlash against DEI\u00a0gained steam<\/a>\u00a0during the 2024 presidential election but hit a fever pitch when Trump took office. His early executive orders aimed at eliminating\u00a0\u201cillegal DEI\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in the federal government and the private sector were the single-largest driving force behind the reforms that swept corporate America, Gravity Research found.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s return to office created a seismic shift in the risk calculus for companies with DEI commitments,\u201d said Joanna Piacenza, vice president of thought leadership with Gravity Research, which advises companies on social, political and reputational risks. \u201cUnlike earlier backlash driven by online activists which focused on reputational and social media pressure, Trump’s administration brought policy levers and legal authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most of the policy shifts \u2013 80% \u2013 tracked in Gravity Research\u2019s study of Fortune 1000 companies and sports leagues between June 2024 and May 2025 occurred after Trump\u2019s inauguration. But the rate slowed significantly following the post-inauguration push, Piacenza said.<\/p>\n

For example, 11 companies publicly announced in February they would make major changes to diverse hiring targets and workforce and executive representation goals, but only two made those changes in May.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe slowdown appears to reflect a \u2018wait-and-see\u2019 posture from companies,\u201d Piacenza said.\u00a0“With those initial policy adjustments now set in motion, companies appear to be reassessing further changes.”<\/p>\n

Corporations made these DEI changes<\/p>\n

Corporations that rushed to make changes following the inauguration were those with the most to lose: federal contractors and companies in highly regulated industries. Nearly three-quarters of the corporations that made post-inauguration DEI changes were federal contractors, the study showed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of the DEI changes corporations made, the most significant was around hiring and representation goals, according to Gravity Research. Corporations also rebranded DEI efforts with more anodyne names such as \u201cinclusion and belonging\u201d and changed the chief diversity officer title to \u201cvice president of talent strategy\u201d or \u201chead of people engagement\u201d after Trump\u2019s inauguration. Mentions of \u201cDEI\u201d and related terms also vanished from corporate reports, regulatory filings and websites.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Few companies dismantled employee resource groups but emphasized they are open to all employees and are aligned with business priorities such as professional development and networking. \u201cWith federal agencies signaling that ERGs could be investigated as discriminatory, this issue may resurface as a reputational risk in the months ahead,\u201d the Gravity Research study said.<\/p>\n

DEI retreat or ‘head fake’?<\/p>\n

The Gravity Research study found that corporations are reframing but not retreating from DEI, with 80% affirming ongoing commitments to \u201cinclusion,\u201d \u201cbelonging,\u201d or \u201caccessibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Business leaders are gaining confidence from pro-DEI shareholder votes<\/a> and from the challenges faced by companies that have retreated on DEI, including declining sales<\/a>, shrinking market caps and struggles attracting and retaining talent, said Carissa Romero, co-founder and managing director of the culture and inclusion platform Paradigm.<\/p>\n

Guidance issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in March also reassured corporations that the Trump administration would not view their strategies as \u201cillegal DEI.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corporations are also facing growing pressure from pro-DEI activists who have mounted a string of boycotts<\/a> protesting DEI rollbacks. It\u2019s unclear how much of an impact these boycotts are having on the bottom line, but Target cited its decision to end some diversity policies as a contributor to a sharp first-quarter pullback in consumer spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost companies know creating diverse workforces, fair processes that advance the best talent and inclusive environments where people who are different from one another can collaborate effectively is essential to long-term business success,\u201d Romero said. \u201cThese efforts aren\u2019t a \u2018nice to have,\u2019 they\u2019re strategic levers for innovation, performance and resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corporations could quickly change their tune if the Trump administration ramps up DEI enforcement, Piacenza said. Last week the Labor Department\u2019s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs issued a letter<\/a> inviting federal contractors to voluntarily disclose what steps they have taken to \u201cwind down\u201d DEI programs.<\/p>\n

DEI critics like shareholder activist Paul Chesser accuse corporations of ducking Trump administration oversight and “snookering” customers and shareholders by making superficial changes to their policies while maintaining their commitment to diversity programs<\/a> behind the scenes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Chesser, director of the National Legal and Policy Center\u2019s Corporate Integrity Project<\/a>, calls it \u201cthe head fake<\/a> across corporate America to give the impression \u2013 with little or no evidence \u2013 that companies are eliminating DEI.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCompanies that outside parties perceive as having made only cosmetic changes could face renewed scrutiny,\u201d Piacenza said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The companies standing up to Trump on DEI Companies like Costco and Levi’s are rejecting the White House’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[5492,5426,5491,5498,11582,285,49,978,659,9347,91304],"class_list":{"0":"post-232747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-branch","9":"tag-diversity","10":"tag-executive","11":"tag-executive-branch","12":"tag-lobbying","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-usa","17":"tag-workplace","18":"tag-workplace-diversity"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}