McDonald’s has become the latest company to scale back its diversity goals, joining a growing list of corporations, including Walmart, John Deere, and Harley-Davidson, that reduced their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives last year.
In 2021, facing legal challenges related to sexual harassment and racial discrimination, McDonald’s launched new diversity initiatives to address these issues. However, McDonald’s said on Monday that the “shifting legal landscape” following the Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action in college admissions, along with actions taken by other corporations, prompted a thorough review of its own policies.
The company said that it will discontinue setting “aspirational representation goals,” which are targets aimed at increasing diverse representation in senior roles, and that it plans to discontinue a program that urged suppliers to implement diversity training and boost minority representation within their leadership teams. McDonald’s is also renaming its diversity team to the Global Inclusion Team, a move that aligns with a broader trend among companies scaling back their diversity commitments.
The company also announced that it will pause participation in “external surveys.” Although it did not elaborate further, other corporations, including Lowe’s and Ford Motor Co., have similarly withdrawn from the Human Rights Campaign’s annual survey, the Corporate Equality Index, which assesses workplace inclusion for LGBTQ employees and has been instrumental in improving workplace benefits for LGBTQ people.
This trend comes as several major companies face mounting pressure from conservative activists threatening boycotts and groups like the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, which have been actively challenging DEI programs. Additionally, dozens of lawsuits have been filed against employers over DEI initiatives, with complaints alleging that hiring practices, employee resource groups, or mentorship programs prioritize certain races or sexual identities while excluding others.
However, many companies originally developed DEI and anti-harassment programs to mitigate the legal risks associated with toxic workplace environments, and Eric Bloem, vice president at the Human Rights Campaign, has warned that “abandoning these programs in fact opens them up to risk down the road if employees feel discrimination or harassment.”
Rolling back DEI initiatives may have other consequences as well. According to the Human Rights Campaign, scaling back DEI efforts could alienate LGBTQ employees, with 72 percent reporting they would feel less accepted and 80 percent indicating they might boycott such companies. Many also expressed a willingness to leave employers that reduce DEI commitments.
This trend of rolling back DEI initiatives could also exacerbate existing disparities in corporate leadership, particularly for people of color. According to a data investigation by USA TODAY, employees of color remain significantly underrepresented across all levels of corporate leadership in the United States. A 2023 analysis revealed that white men comprise 70 percent of executive officers at the nation’s largest companies, with approximately 1 in 7 of these companies having executive teams composed exclusively of white men.
While McDonald’s said it had been evaluating updates to its policies for several months, the backlash against corporate DEI initiatives seems to have intensified ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
“It’s rather concerning the number of major companies who have started reverting DEI initiatives since Trump won the election back in November,” transgender legislative researcher Allison Chapman told Truthout.
President-elect Donald Trump has been an outspoken critic of DEI programs and has appointed Stephen Miller, founder of America First Legal — a group that has actively opposed corporate DEI policies — as his incoming deputy chief of staff for policy.
“If companies are willing to bend to Republican will even prior to taking office, imagine how much Republicans will be able to change when they are in office,” Chapman said.
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