After years of Wall Street and corporate America embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion, the tides now appear to be shifting, and some companies are beginning to de-emphasize or reorganize their DEI efforts.
Corporations have long advertised their diversity initiatives and intensified those efforts following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. In the years since, critics have said the initiatives and new DEI hires are proof that Wall Street has gone “woke.”
Now, the pushback appears to have reached a boiling point following a concerted effort from Republican politicians, corporate watchdogs, and conservative legal groups. Some corporations have reorganized their DEI departments, de-emphasized them, or even disbanded them in recent months — all amid one of the most divisive election years in modern history.
“I think it absolutely is a pronounced shift,” Will Hild, executive director of the conservative nonprofit group Consumers’ Research, told the Washington Examiner. “I think it’s important not to overstate it, I think a lot of the people that have pushed the DEI industrial complex are still trying to figure out a way to keep it alive.”
The latest blow to the DEI movement came when Microsoft reportedly fired its DEI team. In an email reported by Business Insider, a Microsoft “team leader” wrote: “True systems-change work associated with DEI programs everywhere are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020.”
A Microsoft spokesman told the Washington Examiner, though, that it continued to do “D&I” work through the “Global Talent, Development, Diversity and Inclusion team.” The company also criticized the reporting from Business Insider as “misleading.”
