We’re just about keeping track of what President Trump is up to – he’s only been in office for a few weeks but has quickly got embroiled in a war on diversity, equity and inclusion (just in case he hasn’t got enough on his plate….)

Since he signed an executive order which rolls back DEI programmes in the US, the backlash has been immense. However, there have been companies that have taken his lead and ditched their programmes. But it will be interesting to note which companies decide not to?

In the US for example, Walmart said it would abandon its DEI commitments, Boeing also dismantled its global diversity, equity and inclusion department, Molson Coors said it would abandon supplier diversity quotas, Lowe’s said it would combine its employee resource groups into one umbrella organisation, and cease participating in HRC surveys as well as Pride parades, Ford Motor Co. informed employees that it t would stop participating in external diversity surveys, Brown-Forman told employees it would no longer tie executive compensation to DEI progress and remove its workforce and supplier diversity goals after Trump’s order, Harley-Davidson said it abandoned its ‘DEI function’ in April, and John Deere said it would no longer support ‘cultural awareness; events like Pride parades and more.

One company, Costco, has so far refused to back down from its DEI policies, with more than 98 per cent of its shareholders refusing to review the potential risks of maintaining its DEI initiatives. According to Forbes, they said it ‘believes that our commitment to an enterprise rooted in respect and inclusion is appropriate and necessary.’’

Several business leaders also addressed DEI at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. At the time, Trump said his administration was moving to ‘abolish all discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion nonsense’ in the government and the private sector, but some CEOs were less than happy.

CNBC reported that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said his company will ‘continue to reach out to the Black community and Hispanic community, LGBT community, and the veteran community’; Nasdaq CEO Adena Friedman explained that attitudes toward diversity ‘come and go with different political cycles’, but her company will value ‘diversity of views and diversity of backgrounds.’

Vista Equity Partners CEO Robert Smith said ‘diversity is a great thing in business,’ and the Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan told Reuters that there is ‘commercial logic’ surrounding diversity. With so much happening since the executive order was signed, has his DEI order made companies look at their own programmes? Of course.

Jennie Glazer, chief executive of Coqual, revealed that there are legal risks and polarised messages which are forcing leaders to pause and recalibrate their DEI initiatives.

However, members are more likely to be ‘reframing than retreating’. But why?

Allegedly, an executive told her: “It’s not that our leaders don’t care — it’s that they’re exhausted by constant change and the feeling they must ‘get it right’ all the time.”Joelle Emerson, chief executive of Paradigm, said that there’s no clear line between the rhetoric and vision, stating: “It looks like most companies are standing by their goals of creating fair, inclusive workplaces while at the same time distancing themselves from a politicised acronym. The acronym is far less important than the work.”

So, it seems that as the term ‘DEI’ becomes less and less acceptable to use, companies are instead choosing to label it differently whilst upholding the same values.

This is because of the overwhelming amount of negativity DEI has been receiving lately.

Diversity, equity and inclusion policies became the new normal after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd. Organisations and movements wanting to prove that the lives of minority groups are important in the workplace began to implement better initiatives in the hopes of making their employees feel more valued and secure in their roles.

However, these programmes have faced legal and political challenges after the DEI policies were labelled racist and ‘woke.’ Bill Ackman and Elon Musk are famously anti-DEI and have spoken out against it in recent years. Ackman pushed for the resignation of former Harvard University President Claudine Gay after she told Congress that there were instances of antisemitism on campus following attacks in Israel. Ackman wrote in an essay that Gay was hired through a Harvard presidential search process that hired candidates through certain diversity criteria, which was debunked. Then Alabama, Iowa and Utah banned DEI at public colleges and universities.People slowly began to believe that DEI was a ‘woke agenda’, and when the public changes, so do brand values.

Companies need to uphold a certain standard when it comes to reeling in their consumer base, as well as candidates to work for them. So, if DEI is no longer the ‘in’ thing, then there will be a flurry of internal reviews and conversations about changing the company’s structure.

While this appears to have happened since Trump’s DEI crusade, companies have either ditched their policies or rebranded their policies. This means that they will update their programmes to omit the words ‘diversity’ or ‘inclusion’ whilst still maintaining the same policies.

Others will look at the expenditure that their DEI policies have taken from the budget and cut back, just like the companies above who will no longer take part in Pride events.

Then, there are those who wither steadfastly maintain their DEI and those who will no longer participate. As frustrating as this new chapter is, it cannot be argued that this has led to a major upheaval of DEI, and it may also be an uncomfortable and worrisome time for workers in the US right now who may have felt reassured by DEI programmes when applying for roles.

The impact of Trump’s orders is yet to be revealed, but there are always organisations that align with your goals and your values. You just need to look for them.

At Orange Malone, we release regular articles about the state of the world, the workplace, and candidate wellbeing. If you want to read more about what we talk about, visit our linkedin page to browse through our other work. http://linkedin.com/in/sophiepeterson