Benefits experts were quick to defend the future of diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the U.S. following the reelection of President Donald Trump in November. But as corporations and government agencies pull back from DEI programs, optimism has been replaced by fear that such efforts won't survive past 2025.
Major companies like
The series of orders released in January, which include "
In speaking with Employee Benefit News'
"Businesses are going to be much better off if they do the right thing morally and ethically and don't start cutting off wide swathes of people just because of their skin color or background," Olivarius said. "Do what you've always should have done: Hire the best people for the job, whether they're Black, white — it doesn't matter."
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The popularity of DEI programs in the U.S. have all but tanked compared to just a few years ago, when companies of all shapes and sizes made public efforts to promote support for marginalized groups within the workforce.
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Roughly 75% of respondents said their employers definitely or probably have a genuine commitment to inclusion, with a greater share of employees from those in the majority reporting that their workplaces were healthier when compared to the organizations not committed to inclusivity causes.
Among the top DEI-focused efforts that were undertaken by employers, 45% reported company-wide diversity training, 40% said the creation of employee resource groups centered around specific demographics like race or gender and 37% responded with reevaluations of pay structures to better match wages with work.
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Trump's impact on DEI across the government is still unfolding, leaving executives questioning what a similar approach in their industries could mean for employees.
Read on to stay informed on the latest changes in the diversity landscape and hear from experts on what could be next.
Will Trump's DEI conquest extend to reproductive benefits?
President Donald Trump's
In speaking with EBN's
"We view family building and reproductive benefits as medical treatments akin to cancer treatments or broken bones," he said. "Just like those benefits wouldn't change with changes to DEI, we have not seen any sort of pull back on either existing customers who offer the benefit, or potential new customers.
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Trump's DEI executive orders push Accenture to dismantle goals
The global professional services firm Accenture is abandoning its diversity benchmarks in the wake of Trump's widespread executive orders.
Sweet said the company by and large met the goals by the 2025 deadline, which included boosting the share of women that made up its U.S. workforce to half and the percentage of managing director roles held by women to 30% across its global operations.
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Oklahoma legislators seek to break DEI efforts at Amazon, Alphabet
Oklahoma Treasurer Todd Russ and other officials are planning to leverage the state's investor status to launch anti-DEI shareholder proxy proposals towards Amazon, Alphabet and other major organizations.
The state invests in several organizations like Amazon and others through its $2 billion Tobacco Settlement Endowment Trust, which entitles Russ to submit proposals for instilling "political neutrality" in the companies' policies and partnerships. Other targeted organizations include Netflix, Lululemon, GoDaddy and Yum! Brands.
"The fiduciary obligation of a publicly traded company is to maximize their earnings for their shareholders," Russ said in an interview with Bloomberg. When boards "double down on things like DEI, and that ends up in the boardroom, they muddy the waters on real fiduciary obligations."
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How Trump is working to erase DEI from the government
Trump's quest to remove DEI programs and initiatives across the U.S. government has advanced to now ordering agency leaders to scrap efforts based on race, gender and other protected characteristics.
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The orders don't include staff or divisions dedicated to "counsel[ing] employees allegedly subjected to discrimination, receiv[ing] discrimination complaints, collect[ing] demographic data and process[ing] accommodation requests," the memo said.
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Unpacking Trump's anti-DEI orders
Employers have so far been largely spared from Trump's wide-sweeping executive orders eroding DEI programs and unwinding a 60-year-old equal opportunity policy for federal contractors — but executives are wary that change is on the horizon.
The main argument being made by the Trump administration is the idea that DEI programs promote discrimination against white candidates in favor of more diverse talent, filling a quota rather than recognizing differences in accomplishments.
"The notion is that every person of color, women, any trans person, they're all there because of affirmative action," Ann Olivarius, women's rights attorney, chair and senior partner at McAllister Olivarius, told EBN's Deanna Cuadra. "It's so insulting and humiliating — it's an active threat against us."
