LONDON (Reuters) - Some large U.S. companies had made limited progress in promoting women and were diluting or abandoning equal opportunity initiatives even before President Donald Trump launched last week a nationwide campaign to scrap them, underscoring a shift in corporate priorities.

Shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, Trump issued sweeping executive orders to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes in the United States and pressured the private sector to join the initiative.

Months before, however, big U.S. household names from Meta to Walmart ( WMT ) had already moved to scrap or curtail their DEI programmes. Such initiatives are aimed at addressing longstanding structural racism and sexism by promoting opportunities in the workplace for women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ people and other underrepresented groups.

"The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing," Meta said in a Jan. 10 internal memo reviewed by Reuters.

On Friday, retailer Target ( TGT ) became the latest high-profile U.S. name to roll back its diversity programmes. 

While anti-DEI activists argue these initiatives give people of minority backgrounds an unfair advantage, advocates fear the rollbacks will prompt companies to lapse back into inequity.

Reuters reviewed filings made to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and employment demographic reports for nine large companies that have scaled back or abandoned their diversity initiatives last year: Meta, Walmart ( WMT ), Amazon.com ( AMZN ), Starbucks ( SBUX ), Deere & Co ( DE ), Ford, Boeing ( BA ), McDonald's and Lowe's Companies.

The documents, which for some companies are limited to just a couple of years, showed patchy progress.

Only four of those companies managed to increase the proportion of U.S. female staff since the Covid-19 pandemic. However the increases have been marginal, including in the key mid-level managers cohort. Hispanic and Black women remained largely under-represented, the data showed.

At Amazon.com ( AMZN ), for instance, the proportion of U.S. mid-level managers that are female has risen from 29.5% in 2020 - when the pandemic erupted - to 32% in 2023, the last year for which such data is available. At Deere & Co ( DE ), which manufactures heavy equipment, the same proportion went up from 27.2% to 28.4% over the same period, according to Reuters calculations on the data.

Amazon ( AMZN ) did not comment on the data but referred Reuters to the company's DEI website. The e-commerce player shared an internal memo sent to employees in December about "winding down outdated (DEI) programs" but said it still remained "steadfast" in creating a diverse and inclusive company.

A few companies appeared to have been backsliding.

The proportion of Meta's mid-level officials and managers who are women, for instance, dropped in 2023 to 29.8% from 34.4% in 2020. At Ford, the numbers fell to 24.8% in 2023 from 26.7% in 2021, the oldest available report for the automaker. 

Meta and Ford managed, however, to improve the proportion of female top executives to 36.3% from 35.3% and to 27.4% from 25.2% respectively over the periods surveyed, the data review shows.

At the nine companies surveyed, Hispanic and Black women, on average, each represented just around 5% of mid-level managers in the United States in 2023.

At Ford, only 1.1% of mid-level officials and managers that year were Hispanic women and 8.8% were Black women, while at Deere & Co ( DE ) 1.1% of its mid-level managers were Black women and 1% Hispanic, Reuters calculations on available data show.

Bureau of Labor Statistics data show Black people accounted in 2023 for 13% of the U.S. labour force, while people of Hispanic or Latino ethnicity make up 19%.

"PIPELINE, PIPELINE, PIPELINE"

Experts say fostering diversity in middle management is vital because that is where the pathways for male and female workers often start to diverge.

"It's why we're always talking about pipeline, pipeline, pipeline," said Laura Sanderson, Co-Head of Europe, Middle East & India at executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates.

"It's not enough to just have women on your executive committee. You need them in the right roles to be preparing them."

Women made up 39% of managerial roles across corporate America in 2024, 40% in 2023 and 38% in 2020, according to data from consulting firm McKinsey. 

Meta, which confirmed to Reuters it is scaling back its DEI programmes, said equal opportunity data for 2022 and 2023 was affected by layoffs, without elaborating. 

Approached by Reuters multiple times for this story, Lowe's did not respond. Boeing ( BA ) referred to DEI data on its website but did not offer additional comment. Deere & Co ( DE ) acknowledged the request to comment but did not do so. Starbucks ( SBUX ) provided employment demographic data but did not comment on Reuters' calculations. Walmart ( WMT ) confirmed the numbers but did not elaborate on them.

Ford told Reuters the document it uploaded to its website for 2021 was only based on that year's filing to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission but was not the filing itself. The company did not provide its actual 2021 filing.

McDonald's said the employment filings reviewed by Reuters represented a small portion of its U.S. workforce because they did not include franchise locations.

  CHANGING LANDSCAPE

Gender diversity experts say the departure from equal opportunity initiatives marks a shift in U.S. boardroom attitudes after many had ramped up DEI efforts in the aftermath of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, a Black man who died after a former Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for about nine minutes. 

About three years prior, the '#MeToo' movement had gained global prominence, prompting conversations about women's issues in the workplace and scrutiny around inequity and harassment.

Yet, the last couple of years have seen a backlash against equal opportunity initiatives in some sections of American society. In June 2023, the conservative-leaning U.S. Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in university admissions. The verdict sparked a wave of lawsuits by conservative groups against DEI programmes in the workplace.

"In a shift from recent years, (companies) are no longer willing to put their head above the parapet," said Carlota Esguevillas, head of responsible investment at EdenTree Investment Management, a sustainable investment manager based in Britain.

According to McKinsey, 78% of North American companies polled in an annual survey last year said gender diversity was a corporate priority, down from 88% in 2017.

"Companies are saying diversity is no longer a top priority," said Alexis Krivkovich, a senior partner at McKinsey, which has for a decade written a yearly report on corporate women in North America. "It's the first time we've seen a material step back, and that really concerns me."

Meanwhile, the gap between men and women is closing at a snail's pace: for every 100 men promoted to manager in 2024, 81 women were promoted, against 79 in 2018. 

Despite the changing landscape, some large companies have not given up on their DEI initiatives. Apple ( AAPL ), whose filings show the proportion of female mid-level managers rose to 29.8% in 2023 from 28% in 2020, recommended earlier in January its investors vote against a proposal from the conservative National Center for Public Policy to abolish the tech company's diversity programmes.

Last week, Costco shareholders overwhelmingly rejected an anti-DEI measure.

(Reporting by Richa Naidu and Simon Jessop; Additional reporting by Michael Pell; Editing by Matt Scuffham and Lisa Jucca)