America’s Biggest Companies Are Rolling Back Board Diversity Rules
61 S&P 100 companies have removed diversity criteria for upcoming board members since 2023, according to an ESGAUGE analysis of filings and governance documents for Bloomberg News. Companies such as Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Starbucks Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co have eliminated diversity requirements for directors in the last three years.
Companies removing diversity criteria for board members
ESGAUGE analysis of corporate filings found that companies that had previously referenced gender, race, ethnicity, or underrepresented groups in board-selection criteria had removed that terminology. Companies like Micro Devices Inc., Capital One Financial Corp., Microsoft Corp., Starbucks, Uber Technologies Inc. and Wells Fargo applied the same diversity criteria for CEO succession. All companies except Microsoft have removed that language.
Additionally, Starbucks and Wells Fargo removed diversity criteria for new directors.
AMD has removed its commitment to “include qualified female and racially/ethnically diverse candidates” in its CEO pool, but it still has diversity criteria for board directors, Bloomberg reports.
Companies scalling back their DEI efforts
Since President Donald Trump revoked a six-decade-old executive order that prohibited workplace discrimination by federal contractors, several companies have scaled back their DEI efforts.
Amazon said it was “winding down outdated programs and materials” after analyzing hundreds of initiatives. Janelle Gale, vice president of human resources, said Meta was pivoting away from DEI as the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing.”
Target scaled back its DEI programs, including ending a program to support Black employees, improve Black shoppers’ experiences, and promote Black-owned businesses.
In July 2024, John Deere announced they would no longer support “social or cultural awareness” events. “The existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification has never been and is not company policy,” the company said in a statement posted on X.
McDonald’s CEO and Chairman Chris Kempczinski announced that it would reduce its DEI initiatives. Walmart decided to discontinue multiple DEI initiatives in its workplaces. This plan to phase out DEI efforts was made public by anti-DEI conservative activist Robby Starbuck.
Image: Vitaly Gariev
