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DEI under attack from Trump, major companies

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After deadly plane crash, Trump points to diversity

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Underrepresented groups likely to suffer fallout

By David Sherfinski

RICHMOND, Virginia, Feb 3 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) -

I n Dima Ghawi's early career in finance and tech, she recalls

companies having some form of diversity, equity and inclusion

(DEI) policies that tried to increase the number of women

working in certain fields.

"That was before DEI was the cool thing to do, like a few

years ago," said Ghawi, who is now a leadership coach and

considers herself a DEI success story.

"Now when I look back, I feel the reason I am doing what I'm

doing - being successful, driving positive change in the world -

is because somebody opened a door for me that maybe was not

available to women before me."

When she interviewed for a teller job at Bank of

America ( BAC ), she recalled the hiring manager telling her

"everybody starts someplace, everybody deserves a chance."

"It opened a small little door to help me prove myself," she

said.

"And at the same time, he didn't let his bias affect how he

perceived me at that time - maybe the bias that I have an

accent, maybe the bias that I'm female, maybe the bias related

to I'm from a different country," she said.

She said when it comes to DEI, she's not advocating to hire

or promote people solely because of factors like gender or

ethnicity.

"All we're saying, at least what I'm teaching people, is

let's pause and address these biases that we may not be aware

of," she said.

Stories like Ghawi's could become harder to come by under

President Trump's administration, which is aggressively rooting

out DEI initiatives throughout federal government, and major

companies from Meta to Amazon.com Inc. ( AMZN ) are likewise

winding down some of their own programs.

Trump has strongly promoted the push, casting DEI policies

as illegal and even pointing to DEI efforts as having weakened

federal air safety in his remarks about the deadly plane crash

near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport last week.

The impacts will be felt among underrepresented groups,

along with a shrinking number of people in DEI-related positions

in both the public and private sectors, experts said.

"This is professionally jarring," said Ella Washington, a

workplace consultant, professor and author of books including

"The Necessary Journey: Making Real Progress on Equity and

Inclusion."

"Imagine your life's work, your professional work, something

that you went to school for, something that you've dedicated

your whole career to not only being pushed back against but

being attacked as wrong or even illegal."

ACTION IN D.C.

During his first days back in office, Trump signed executive

orders aimed at ending DEI programs in the federal government,

and his administration directed agencies to put all employees of

DEI offices on administrative leave.

He also rescinded an order, in place since the 1960s, that

barred discrimination on the part of federal contractors.

The president put DEI front and center after the devastating

Jan. 29 mid-air crash that killed 67 people, in which a

commercial airliner collided with a Black Hawk helicopter,

saying the incident "could have been" the result of diversity

hiring.

"Certainly, for an air traffic controller, we want the

brightest, the smartest, the sharpest, we want somebody that's

psychologically superior, and that's what we're going to have,"

he said.

Asked how he could conclude that diversity had something to

do with the crash, Trump said: "Because I have common sense, OK?

And, unfortunately, a lot of people don't."

His administration also has directed federal employees to

report any colleagues attempting to disguise DEI programs as

something else, threatening "adverse consequences" if

individuals didn't quickly disclose any attempted subterfuge.

The moves came as a string of companies, including Meta,

Walmart Inc. ( WMT ), McDonald's Corp. and Target

Corp. ( TGT ), announced in recent weeks that they would be

winding down DEI or diversity-related programs or initiatives.

Washington pointed out, however, that anti-DEI sentiment has

been percolating for at least a few years, following calls for

racial justice - and backlash - after the 2020 death of George

Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of police in Minnesota.

She said she already has seen colleagues getting laid off,

chief diversity officers losing their jobs or not having

positions backfilled and, in academia, colleagues asked or told

to change the names of their courses.

"The chilling effect did not just start for people like

myself," she said.

States have been passing their own anti-DEI laws in recent

years. Last year, the University of Texas at Austin made waves

by summarily dismissing some diversity staff to avoid conflict

with an anti-DEI state law.

The U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 ruling that effectively ended

affirmative action in admissions at U.S. colleges and

universities was also a seismic move still having repercussions

throughout higher education.

Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National

Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, told

Context/Thomson Reuters Foundation that the White House's recent

executive orders mispresent DEI efforts "as divisive rather than

as essential to fostering opportunity and institutional

excellence."

Granberry Russell said her organization is still encouraging

institutions "to continue to collect and share evidence of how

diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives contribute to

student success, workforce preparedness, and institutional

strength, reinforcing the idea that these programs are essential

to academic and economic progress."

Studies have found that diversity principles enacted by

companies were correlated to increased profitability.

Pro-Trump and conservative groups, meanwhile, are hailing

the anti-DEI trend, saying such policies worked to perpetuate

discrimination rather than break through it.

Trump, through his executive orders, "has begun to dismantle

'diversity, equity, and inclusion' programs, ending decades of

taxpayer-funded racism in America," said Dan Lennington, deputy

counsel at the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, an

advocacy group that has fought DEI efforts in the federal

government.

"Unfortunately, these ubiquitous DEI programs and practices

are rooted deep in Washington and around the country," he said.

"The real work has just begun."

PUSHING BACK

At the other end of the corporate world, however, companies

like Costco Wholesale Corp. ( COST ) and Delta Air Lines

Inc. ( DAL ) have rejected the recent anti-DEI push.

Ghawi said there is something of a rebranding effort

underway at companies still trying to promote related values,

albeit quietly.

She said, in fact, she has clients expanding into being more

accommodating to people with disabilities and people of

different generations.

"Not all companies stopped," she said. "They may not be

comfortable to publicize it externally like they did in 2020, to

make these big statements, but they are doing it internally.

"They may not be talking about it on their website or

applying for awards related to DEI, but they are still doing

it."

Nevertheless, Washington said the recent trends are jarring,

noting that at least one of Trump's orders reversed protections

in place since the 1960s.

"This is a very tough moment to be a DEI practitioner or

scholar .... and yes, absolutely for the federal employees that

were placed on leave but also for everyone else working in

industry, working in academia," she said.

"This is literally a political attack on people's

professions that actually had nothing to do with politics."