Report: 44 Organizations Cut or Ended DEI Since 2023

The phrase “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (or DEI) grew from virtually nothing in 2019 to a fast peak in 2021. But since then, DEI has given away nearly all of its gains in the workplace.

In this report, we cover 44 organizations (including companies, universities, and government entities) that have reduced or eliminated their DEI programs. These organizations…

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Full list | Downloadable spreadsheet | Notable DEI statistics

👉 Notable Companies Rolling Back DEI Initiatives 👈

Here are all 44 announcements of companies cutting or closing their DEI programs. As new announcements come out, we’ll update the report.

Want to access this list in a spreadsheet?

University of Michigan

Action: Scaled back DEI Department
Date: 12/5/2024
Story: The university will “will no longer ask for diversity statements from faculty when considering hiring, promotion or tenure.” (source)

Southwest Airlines

Action: Scaled back DEI Department
Date: 12/5/2024
Story: Southwest Airlines is backing away from its diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring programs in response to legal action from a conservative organization. (source)

Target

Action: Legal Challenges Over DEI Policies
Date: 12/5/2024
Story: AFL filed a lawsuit against Target claiming the board had misled investors about the financial risks of its DEI and ESG practices. (source)

Walmart

Action: Scaled back DEI Department
Date: 11/27/2024
Story: Walmart will start to unwind its Center for Racial Equity. CEO stated the DEI policy change is designed to “ensure every customer, every associate” feels welcome and like they belong. (source)

Caterpillar

Action: Altered DEI Language and Focus
Date: 11/23/2024
Story: Caterpillar decided to stop participating in Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index Ranking System (source)

Molson Coors Beverage

Action: Dismantled DEI Department
Date: 9/20/2024
Story: Molson Coors said it will be getting rid of supplier diversity quotas, and stated its DEI employee training is complete and that it will no longer have specific “representation goals” in its hiring process. (source)

Financial Industry Regulatory Authority

Action: Altered DEI Language and Focus
Date: 11/19/2024
Story: FINRA scrubbed its website of pages promoting racial justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts amid a conservative backlash against DEI programs. (source)

Federal Communications Commission

Action: Dismantled DEI Department
Date: 11/18/2024
Story: “The FCC’s most recent budget request said that promoting DEI was the agency’s second highest [sic] strategic goal. Starting next year, the FCC will end its promotion of DEI.” (source)

United Airlines

Action: Legal Challenges Over DEI Policies
Date: 11/8/2024
Story: AFL filed a complaint against United Airlines with the OFCCP accusing United of intentionally, and systematically violating its equal opportunity covenants and assurances. (source)

Boeing

Action: Dismantled DEI Department
Date: 11/5/2024
Story: Boeing Co. has dismantled its global DEI department, staff will be combined with another human resources team focused on talent and employee experience (source)

Toyota

Action: Scaled back DEI Department
Date: 10/9/2024
Story: Toyota backtrack on its support of LGBTQ+ causes, Pride Month, and overall DEI initiatives in an attempt to soothe its conservative customers (source)

Morgan Stanley

Action: Altered DEI Language and Focus
Date: 9/17/2024
Story: A Morgan Stanley spokesperson stated while no formal representation objectives are outlined in this year’s ESG Report, we continue to be focused on improving representation among underrepresented groups at all levels. (source)

BlackRock

Action: Scaled back DEI Department
Date: 9/12/2024
Story: BlackRock reported that it had significantly reduced its support for shareholder proposals addressing environmental and social issues. (source)

Western Carolina University

Action: Dismantled DEI Department
Date: 9/12/2024
Story: At least seven university chancellors chose to close their DEI offices to comply with the BOG’s “institutional neutrality” policy including Western Carolina (source)

Ford

Action: Scaled back DEI Department
Date: 8/28/2024
Story: Ford said it will redefine its DEI Program amid pressure from conservative groups including ending participation in an LGBTQ advocacy group’s ranking system (source)

Lowe’s

Action: Scaled back DEI Department
Date: 8/27/2024
Story: The retailer began “reviewing” its programs following the court’s July 2023 ruling and the company recently decided to combine its resource groups. (source)

University of Kentucky

Action: Dismantled DEI Department
Date: 8/27/2024
Story: University of Kentucky will no longer require diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) training for students or faculty. The office will be disbanded and other offices will absorb the people and services (source)

Brown–Forman Corporation (Jack Daniels)

Action: Altered DEI Language and Focus
Date: 8/27/2024
Story: The company said since it launched its DEI strategy in 2019, the world has evolved, its business has changed and the legal landscape has shifted. Brown-Forman has taken down the DEI page on its website. (source)

Harley-Davidson

Action: Dismantled DEI Department
Date: 8/19/2024
Story: Harley-Davidson announced that they have not operated a DEI function since April 2024, and ended hiring quotas and supplier diversity spend goals (source)

Microsoft

Action: Dismantled DEI Department
Date: 7/19/2024
Story: The company cited “changing business needs” as the reason for dismantling its DEI team, despite earlier commitments to diversity following the 2020 racial reckoning. (source)

John Deere

Action: Pressured on DEI transparency and/or shareholder votes
Date: 7/18/2024
Story: John Deere says it will no longer sponsor “social or cultural awareness” events and ensures the absence of socially-motivated messages. They noted that it would still continue to “track and advance” the diversity of the company, without providing further details. (source)

CNN

Action: Dismantled DEI Department
Date: 7/12/2024
Story: CNN quietly disbanded its “Race and Equality” team of reporters as part of a major restructuring that included firing 100 staffers (source)

Tractor Supply Co.

Action: Dismantled DEI Department
Date: 6/28/2024
Story: Tractor Supply said it would be eliminating all of its diversity, equity and inclusion roles while retiring current DEI goals. It did not elaborate on what was entailed in eliminating DEI roles. (source)

Chipotle Mexican Grill

Action: Altered DEI Language and Focus
Date: 6/18/2024
Story: Chipotle removed or de-emphasized DEI when setting executive pay (source)

Lyft

Action: Laid off DEI Department
Date: 5/29/2024
Story: Lyft slashed their DEI teams by 50% or more (source)

UPS

Action: Pressured on DEI transparency and/or shareholder votes
Date: 5/19/2024
Story: A shareholder resolution asked the company to produce a report detailing the effectiveness of its equity initiatives and to provide metrics. The proposal received about 22% of shareholder votes, not enough to pass. (source)

Eli Lilly

Action: Altered DEI Language and Focus
Date: 5/5/2024
Story: Eli Lilly scuttled DEI from its proxy statement this year and dropped mentions of “racial justice”. It also eliminated a section on progress toward meeting its racial justice commitments, which had been included in 2023. (source)

Starbucks

Action: Pressured on DEI transparency and/or shareholder votes
Date: 3/15/2024
Story: Starbucks’s equality, social and governance goals will be part of a longer-term incentive program that makes up about 25% of bonuses that no longer mentions DEI, referring instead to “talent. Starbucks retains inclusion and diversity goals within its overall compensation structure, a spokesperson said in a statement. (source)

Bank of America

Action: Altered DEI Language and Focus
Date: 3/3/2024
Story: At Bank of America Corp., certain internal programs that used to focus on women and minorities have been broadened to include everyone. (source)

Home Depot

Action: Laid off DEI Department
Date: 2/18/2024
Story: Home Depot was among major corporations making steep cuts in 2023, slashing the size of their DEI teams by 50 percent or more (source)

DoorDash

Action: Laid off DEI Department
Date: 2/18/2024
Story: DoorDash was among major corporations making steep cuts in 2023, slashing the size of their DEI teams by 50 percent or more (source)

Wayfair

Action: Laid off DEI Department
Date: 2/18/2024
Story: Wayfair was among major corporations making steep cuts in 2023, slashing the size of their DEI teams by 50 percent or more (source)

Zoom

Action: Laid off DEI Department
Date: 2/6/2024
Story: Company will instead work with external consultants adding that some work will still be done by internal staff. (source)

Google

Action: Scaled back DEI Department
Date: 2/2/2024
Story: Google backtracked on some key diversity programs in 2023 amid a tightening budget. The company also laid off some staff supporting this initiative. (source)

Tesla

Action: Altered DEI Language and Focus
Date: 1/29/2024
Story: Tesla has removed wording about having a “majority-minority” workforce in its latest 10-K filing alluding to DEI measures at the company (source)

IBM

Action: Legal Challenges Over DEI Policies
Date: 1/24/2024
Story: AFL files an EEO complaint against IBM, alleging that some of the company’s DEI policies violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. (source)

Comcast

Action: Scaled back DEI Department
Date: 1/16/2024
Story: Comcast abandoned the Comcast RISE program [and] entered into a confidential settlement agreement with [the Wisconsin Institute’s] clients. (source)

Goldman Sachs

Action: Scaled back DEI Department
Date: 1/11/2024
Story: GS quietly updated Launch With GS’s website to the past tense and reassigned a handful of staffers working on the program to other roles. (source)

Twitter

Action: Laid off DEI Department
Date: 11/28/2023
Story: Twitter, has drastically reduced its DEI team from 30 employees to 2. (source)

American Airlines

Action: Legal Challenges Over DEI Policies
Date: 11/6/2023
Story: AFL filed a complaint against American Airlines to EEOC accusing the airline of having racial, sexual, and gender discrimination in its recruiting and hiring programs (source)

Cleveland State University

Action: Altered DEI Language and Focus
Date: 9/20/2023
Story: The University is “no longer going to be using the expression campus engagement, diversity, equity and inclusion,” but will “review everything we do through a lens of equity, inclusion, diversity and fundamentally justice.” (source)

Disney District

Action: Dismantled DEI Department
Date: 8/2/2023
Story: CFTOD will dissolve the district’s DEI committee and eliminate any job duties relating to DEI. (source)

Mars

Action: Legal Challenges Over DEI Policies
Date: 4/27/2023
Story: AFL filed a federal civil rights complaint against Mars, Inc. The complaint asks the U.S. EEOC to investigate Mars’s systemic and discriminatory hiring, promotion, and job-training employment practices. (source)

Apple

Action: Pressured on DEI transparency and/or shareholder votes
Date: 3/10/2023
Story: Apple shareholders voted against two race-related investor proposals demanding transparency on racial and gender pay gaps, amidst a general decline in support for aggressive DEI measures. (source)

Download the database of companies ending DEI programs.

Notable Statistics About The Decline of DEI

Mentions of “DEI” in quarterly earnings calls have declined from a peak above 300 in Q2 2021 to below 30 in Q4 of 2024 (source: Axios)

DEI roles grew 25% from 2019-2021 but have shrunk 20% since 2022. (source: Live Data Technologies)

29% of the companies in Buildremote’s report dismantled their DEI department altogether
An additional 29% scaled back their DEI department
Six times as many companies have reduced or closed their DEI departments in 2024 than 2023

Source:

Buildremote, December 2024
https://buildremote.co/companies/ending-dei/

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