#with all the DEI rollbacks…

[arinzeture]

Target lost $15.7 billion in market value after announcing the end of its DEI initiatives in January 2025. Target's stock price fell after the company announced that it was ending some of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

The black out date on Feb 28th serves as a punctuation mark on the on-going boycott of Target and all the other companies that rollbacked their DEI programs. Let’s keep the pressure on by not buying anything from any of these companies.

Boycotts are an effective tool in the hands of an oppressed people who are unified in targeting companies who deal with us in an unjust manner.

[metalheadsagainstfascism]

In an email to the city's planning office dated April 29, the US embassy asked that Stockholm officials sign a document promising that contractors would not operate any programmes promoting DEI that would violate current US law.

Countries and cities across Europe have received similar outreach from U.S. embassies, including France, Belgium and the city of Barcelona, all of which lashed out at the U.S. efforts to expand its anti-DEI policies to the continent.

I just sat there saying "Sweden?" over and over because um...

There's a Milan, NY and Naples, FL. Maybe he thought he thought there was a Stockholm, Connecticut?

No, but I'm just confused...

Imagine writing a letter to fucking France like "STOP BREAKING OUR LAWS!" Bitch, France don't fucking care about our laws. They got their own fucking laws. Actually, France don't even got DEI laws.

Bitch one of these countries should send a letter back "STOP BREAKING OUR LAWS AND IMPLEMENT UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE!"

-fae

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sam Gustin at The Nation:

President Trump’s suggestion last month that the tragic Potomac air crash was somehow the fault of disabled federal air traffic controllers was appalling—but it should have come as no surprise. Trump’s contempt for people with disabilities has been well documented, and it’s that animus, combined with the accelerating MAGA assault on diversity throughout the United States, that has disability rights advocates preparing to defend decades worth of hard-won protections. One month into his presidency, Trump has unleashed a government-wide attack on people with disabilities, from anti-diversity executive orders to proposed special-education rollbacks to threats to slash programs like Medicaid that are lifelines for disabled people across the country. If successful, these actions could have catastrophic consequences for millions of Americans, according to disability rights experts. “This is a crisis for the disability community, and the threat is extremely serious,” Maria Town, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities, told The Nation. “These changes have the potential to erode decades of progress that the disability community has fought tooth and nail to achieve.”

Within 48 hours of taking office, Trump signed two executive orders targeting what he called “illegal” diversity programs—commonly referred to as DEI or DEIA—in both the federal government and the private sector. Trump and his MAGA minions claim that these programs, which promote the worthy goals of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility throughout American society, discriminate against, well, them, and so they should be abolished. At a time when Elon Musk and his DOGE henchmen are racing to “delete” entire federal agencies and fire thousands of government workers, diversity programs have become a convenient target for the drastic budget reductions that Trump seeks—under the bogus guise of “waste, fraud, and abuse”—in order to cut more taxes for rich people and corporations. Hence the MAGA/DOGE crusade to demonize and scapegoat diversity programs for all kinds of calamities, from plane crashes to wildfires to train derailments. Thus far, most of the focus on Trump’s diversity rollback has been on “DEI,” but it’s the “A”—for “accessibility”—that has alarmed disability rights advocates.

“The hard-fought-for acceptance of people with disabilities in society is compromised every time Trump uses DEIA as a bogeyman for everything that’s wrong in society,” said Michael Rembis, a professor of history at the University of Buffalo and director of its Center for Disability Studies. “This purge of federal employees is in part designed to remove people who are perceived to be unproductive for both racist and ableist reasons from the federal government.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1990. Trump’s anti-diversity executive orders roll back more than three decades of US policy since then——including executive orders signed by Clinton, Obama, George W. Bush and Biden—aimed at bringing more people with disabilities into the federal workforce and the private sector. From hiring and job training to career development and workplace accommodation, these policies have given many disabled people new opportunities to thrive, and a new sense of dignity after generations of mistreatment in American society, from ostracization to institutionalization to forced sterilization. Those advances are now at risk, and the impacts are already being felt nationwide, as funding cuts loom for community organizations that provide crucial services and support systems for disabled people, from home modification to job coaching to transportation and personal attendant services. “We’ve heard from many organizations across the country that are having to think about cutting their staff, reducing their services, or even closing their doors,” said Town. Disability rights advocates warn that Trump’s anti-diversity executive orders are just a prelude to even more draconian attacks. For example, Trump’s avowed goal to eliminate the Department of Education could jeopardize special-education programs for roughly 7.5 million students—15 percent of the US student population. Trump’s plan to cut billions in grants issued by the National Institutes of Health threatens long-term research and development focused on life-saving—and life-improving—treatments for millions of Americans. And, of course, any cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and particularly Medicaid—and let’s face it, the GOP wants to eliminate or privatize these programs altogether—will disproportionately affect millions of disabled people who rely on the programs to survive.

[...] The Trump administration’s assault on government policies and programs that benefit disabled people is not just a scheme hatched in the bowels of The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 anti-government boiler room—although it is that, too. It’s also the natural evolution of Trump’s long-standing prejudice against people with disabilities. Trump’s disdain for disabled people is well known, from mocking reporter Serge Kovaleski and insulting wounded veterans to reportedly telling a relative with a disabled son that “maybe those kinds of people should just die.”

[...] It’s no secret that Trump is obsessed with genetics, as demonstrated by his preoccupation with bloodlines and frequent comments about “good” genes, “bad” genes, “low IQ individuals,” immigrants “poisoning the blood” of America, and other bigoted remarks. In 1988, Trump famously told Oprah Winfrey that people must have “the right genes” to become rich. Since then, he has repeatedly compared his family to purebred “racehorses.” In 2020, Trump again invoked the “racehorse” theory to assure a mostly white Midwestern audience that “you have good genes in Minnesota.” And just last year, he intimated—outrageously—that immigrants commit murder because “it’s in their genes.”

[...] It’s worth noting that disabled people were among the earliest victims of the Holocaust, condemned to death by a Nazi program called Aktion T4, which involved the systematic murder of some 300,000 people in psychiatric hospitals in Germany, Austria, and elsewhere in Europe. Stramondo doesn’t expect anything remotely like that to happen in the United States, but he pointed out that sterilization and murder aren’t the only ways to advance eugenic goals. “You can practice and enforce eugenic ideologies that result in lots of people suffering and even dying just by doing something like eliminating Medicaid,” he said.

The Nation reports on Donald Trump’s attacks on DEIA polices and its impact on persons with disabilities, which goes along with his long record of ableism.

[mariacallous]

Several of the nation’s largest LGBTQ Pride celebrations are down hundreds of thousands of dollars in corporate sponsorships this year, with some event organizers saying promised funds have been withdrawn or reduced and others saying they’ve been ghosted by longtime corporate partners.

Pride organizers say some companies fear being targeted by the Trump administration over participation in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, while others are preserving cash in a tumultuous economy.

“I know that they’re facing tough decisions inside those organizations, and I don’t want to call them out. I want to call them in,” Suzanne Ford, the executive director of San Francisco Pride, said of disappearing sponsors. “We will remember who stood by us and who didn’t. When it was politically popular, they were lined up.”

Eve Keller, co-president of USA Prides, a national network of LGBTQ Pride organizers,said members across the country have reported receiving significantly less in sponsorship dollars this year.Some of the smaller, rural Prides are down 70% to 90% when compared to the average year, she said.

“We’re trying not to sound a huge alarm or to make this the only focus, but when we are down money, we’re down safety and security and accessibility as well,” she said, adding that most Prides don’t want to make any cuts to their security measures, so instead they are holding fewer and smaller events.

Last month, Pride St. Louis announced Anheuser-Busch declined to sponsor the organization’s annual PrideFest in St. Louis, where the brewing company is based, after a more than 30-year partnership. The announcement also noted that “funding has been coming in well below expectations,” leaving Pride St. Louis more than $150,000 short of last year’s total Pride budget, which organizers told NBC News was about $480,000.

However, on Wednesday, Pride St. Louis’ DEI and outreach director, Jordan Braxton, said the organization made up almost all of that deficit with an outpouring of individual donations. The loss of the Anheuser-Busch partnership is still “devastating,” Braxton said, because it sends a hurtful message to the community that the company’s support is dependent on who is president.

[sweaterkittensahoy]

y'all, if you want me to participate in a boycott, you have to tell me why. I should not have to google the name of the thing and the date to get an answer.

In case anyone else has seen things about "economic blackout on February 28 ", it's about protesting DEI rollbacks from large companies.

But I had to look it up. You can't run an effective boycott if people don't know why, and you shouldn't want to run a boycott where people can't easily answer why.

Also, the info I saw about it said "Starting with one day, maybe going up to three."

You don't get to be wishy-washy on the length of your short boycott. That's not how this works. Are you doing a 24-hour boycott or are you doing a 3-day boycott? Because it feels like you're trying to have a ready excuse if the numbers aren't as devastating as you would like them to be in 24 hours.

Also, frankly, setting it for February 28th when Valentine's Day is FRIDAY and a day that large retailers usually get slammed makes me feel there's no real backbone in play here.

Look, if you wanna participate, participate. Here's a Newsweek article explaining it.

Also, here's Newsweek explaining who The People's Union is because i sure as fuck didn't know, and frankly from the what the founder of the union focuses on on his own Union website, I do not find them serious in the least. It's all buzz words and sob story background with nothing in the article actually indicating what this group does to actually effect change.

If Newsweek has to run an article explaining who the group is who is trying to run a boycott, and that article doesn't actually explain what the group hopes to achieve by having the boycott, it's not a serious group.

"But, Gayle! They want DEI offices back!"

Okay. But do you really think PBS cut its DEI department because it wanted to or because if they don't, the government funding they get will get yanked? Do you really think Target, that loudly made a point to talk about how less rainbow their capitalism was gonna be before Pride last year, is just chomping at the bit to put their DEI office back into place, or do you think maybe they showed up which side they were on and now they have an easy excuse to drop it?

Do you think Google, who was literally head-hunting me for nearly a year, and then suddenly stopped talking to me just as they got sued by female employees for sexist work practices geniunely care about what DEI can do?

Do you think Amazon, who has cut me out of interview cycles TWICE because when they ask "How do you innovate every day?" and I go, "I don't. I think it's an odd standard to judge all possible employees by especially in my department, where the focus should be on being able to communicate complicated information to anyone in any place at any time, which can lead to innovation but should not be a high-ranked goal" gives a shit about DEI? The Amazon that demanded workers come back to the office back in September while announcing everyone had until January? Thus making it possible for them to have a "voluntary headcount reduction" instead of a layoff to deal with whatever shortcomings the balance sheet showed?

"But, Gayle, I care!"

Aim it somewhere useful. Do a personal boycott. Email all those big companies The People's Union think they can hit on the bottom line within maybe 72 hours and tell them what you generally spend at their company and that you are taking that money away. Because, honestly, an email campaign that is "Hey, I did the math, and last year, I spent $500 at your business, and this year, I'm spending $0." Get your friends into it. Do some community organizing around it. Rather than this empty threat of 24-72 hours, commit to a long-term refusal to work with these private companies who do not have to answer to the government for their funding.

At the end of the day, for me, it comes down to this: A maybe 3-day boycott by an unproven group calling itself a "Union" whose main talking points are "government bad" and "I've been meditating since I was six" (that's not a joke, that's in the article about who the fuck People's Union is) isn't going to do jack fuck all for any DEI program. Literally every business they want you to target can easily handle three days of no shoppers. They can probably handle three years of slow sales, frankly.

The reasons boycotts work when ACTUAL unions call for them is because companies know their average sales. So, if a REAL union says, "Please show your support for the union on February 28 by refusing to buy from our place of business," and that place of business sees a HUGE drop in sales on February 28, they can only assume it's because the union asked customers to show they stand with the union. (By the way, if you ever participate in a boycott like that, please also send an email to customer service that says "I will not be buying from you on February 28 because I stand with the union," but also please only do it if you actually go to that business in general; lots of people call things a boycott when they mean they just don't and never have shopped someplace.).

Those 24-72 hours the People's Union want you spend not shopping but maybe shopping if they feel really powerful after the first 24 hours, will be much better spent bothering your elected officials to make them refuse the anti-DEI executive order.

This is a bragging rights boycott. It will not harm the businesses in the least, but at the end of it, all the people who participated can smugly announce they didn't buy anything at the Target for a whole 3 days because they're so morally correct.

[thatvvitch]

Something I find endlessly hysterical is that all of these predominantly white people cheering at the rollback of civil rights and DEI actually don’t even know what that means. Corporations have been using performative DEI, but what the actual intention was was to prevent discrimination against a lot of different factors.

So not only are the women cheering on allowing discrimination to fully be alive and well against themselves as we are fully entering the Handmaid‘s Tale… but all of these people seem to forget that because we will and have always been in a class war, they will not be able to retire and inevitably when they try to gain employment in their twilight years, age discrimination will come back to bite them in the ass.

America 

[1americanconservative]

@charliekirk11

Here are 50 MAJOR wins from Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill that the media is ignoring

1. No taxes on tips — servers, bartenders, and bellhops just got a raise Promises made, promises kept

2.Made Trump tax cuts permanent — Biden wanted them to expire.

3.Child tax credit raised to $2,500

4.Overtime pay tax-free — work hard, actually keep more.

5.$1.6 trillion in spending cuts — the largest rollback of government bloat in U.S. history.

http://6.Work requirement for welfare — able-bodied? Then get off the couch.

7.Deporting 1 million illegal immigrants per year — no more catch and release.

8. Builds the wall—finishes it — 701 miles of serious border protection. Massive!

9.10,000 new ICE agents — law and order at the border. Huge!

10.Eliminates Medicaid for illegal aliens — American benefits for Americans.

11.“Trump Savings Accounts” for kids — build generational wealth from birth. Game changer.

12.Slashes IRS funding — no more 87,000 new agents breathing down your neck.

http://13.Green New Deal defunded — no more money for solar BS.

http://14.Energy production unleashed — back to drilling, fracking, etc.

15.Tariffs on Chinese-built ships — protect American shipbuilders.

http://16.Buy American, build American — required on all infrastructure projects.

http://17.Estate tax protections expanded — family farms and businesses stay in the family.

18.Repeals DEI mandates — merit matters again. DEI is dying.

19.Bans taxpayer-funded gender ideology in federal agencies.

20.Military pay raise + benefits boost

21.National missile defense (“Golden Dome”)

22.HSA accounts expanded — use them for direct primary care.

http://23.School choice tax credits — parents, not unions, control education. Historic!

24.Feds barred from mandating pronoun usage.

25.Medicaid block grants to states — local control, not DC strings. Saves hundreds of billions.

26.Revives apprenticeship programs — college not required to succeed. The cartel hates this.

27.1% of exports must ship under U.S. flag

28.Mandates voter ID for federal elections.

29.Ends ESG mandates in retirement accounts

30.Cracks down on Big Pharma middlemen

31.Bans drag shows for kids at federally funded venues.

32.Fires the climate cult from federal boards

33.Veterans get priority housing access

34. Tax credit for buying American-made vehicles

35.Stops Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland — our soil is finally protected!.

36.Bans CRT from federal training programs.

37.Ends taxpayer-funded abortions abroad. And defunds planned parenthood!

38.Guts federal diversity czars — cuts the bloated bureaucracy.

39.Revives the Keystone XL pipeline

.

40. Eliminates federal COVID emergency powers

41.Enacts Social Security tax cuts for seniors.

42.Defends religious liberty in the workplace

43. Restores due process on college campuses.

44. Massively expands trade school funding

45. Outlaws federal funding for gender transitions for minors.

46. Creates nationwide “patriot curriculum” grant fund

47.Halts funding to the UN’s woke agenda arms.

48. Tax breaks for adoption and large families.

49. Increases penalties for fentanyl trafficking — life in prison for cartels.

50. Restores cash bail in federal jurisdictions — no more revolving-door criminals.

And this is just a taste.

Promises made, promises kept.

[anatomicaltheatre]

i Lowkeu want to be a gender studies minor but w all the dei rollbacks idek if the school im going to will even have such a program...

[metalheadsagainstfascism]

I should point out that even though Trump cites "there's only two genders" to roll back DEI programs.

Rolling back DEI will roll back all protections based on race and sex. So women and people of color are at risk too.

You know what? All the gay people and women that supported him? Especially the ones that attacked me for not supporting him? I say this with every fiber, every cell, every ATOM of my fucking being. I hope not only do you lose your job for it. I hope that your pink slip cites that the rollback of DEI protections to be the very reason why you lose your job. I hope that you know that voting for Trump is EXACTLY what caused it. I hope you get EXACTLY what you voted for.

Because I fucking told you what was coming and you called me mentally ill.

-fae

[bighermie]

Notoriously Woke Target Announces DEI Rollback Just Days After Trump's Inauguration | The Gateway Pundit | by Ben Zeisloft, The Western Journal

[fuzzyleapfrog]

Universities these days

Faculty members hold more power than many realize. Without their labour, research and expertise, universities cannot function.

Unfortunately, universities that no longer function are part of the goal, aren't they?

The US administration might hope that academics will remain siloed, too consumed with their own work — or too afraid — to resist. However, if faculty members unite across institutions, they can become a force that the federal government cannot ignore.

Hopefully, STEM will not abandon the humanities.

But words won’t be enough. Faculty senates must formally call on universities to refuse compliance. Such resolutions aren’t just symbolic — they create a record that can be cited in lawsuits, the media and advocacy.

If thinking about all of those who already lost, is not motivation enough, think about those who will see what you do now or in the distant future.

If faculty members are to take a stand, universities must back them up — protecting academic freedom, defending academics against retaliation and refusing to cave in to intimidation. [...] For some, organizing against this directive would not be just an act of resistance, it would be an act of professional and personal risk.

Hoping that universities, states and local communities will support their researchers and institutions.

Global institutions must also take a stand.

Don't forget that

[...] it’s not just in the United States. Rollbacks are also taking place in parts of Europe, for example.

And after all and most importantly:

This anti-DEI directive is not just an attack — it’s a test, a probe to see how much resistance universities will muster. Staying silent will not prevent more attacks. The only way to win is to act — together, decisively and now.

This is not a drill. It is a defining moment.

Calisi Rodríguez, R. (2025). ‘Silence is complicity’—Universities must fight the anti-DEI crackdown. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-00667-2

[reading-writing-revolution]

Week 17 - The Return

Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you'll remember.

I asked ChatGPT to take all the items in this week's list and sort them into one of three categories -- Fraud, Waste or Abuse. Since that's the reason given that Trump is dismantling everything, I thought we should use that context -- themes -- to help readers understand what is happening. Here are the results -- sorry if this is really long:

Here is a categorization of the actions under Fraud, Waste and Abuse, as defined:

---

FRAUD (Policies that deceive the public or enable corruption)

- Trump delivering misleading, campaign-style speech at DOJ, calling for jailing opponents.

- Executive orders targeting law firms like Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss for their work.

- EEOC targeting DEI programs under the guise of rooting out “discrimination.”

- Demotion of IRS chief counsel to allow Musk’s DOGE access to sensitive tax data.

- Reassignment of FBI background checks to Pentagon to reduce oversight.

- Use of Project Veritas video to justify pulling $14B in EPA grants.

- Suppression and manipulation of USAID, EPA, and foreign aid systems to favor Trump/Musk allies.

- Firing of FTC commissioners without cause, contrary to precedent.

- Ferguson making unilateral FTC decisions after stacking the commission.

- Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac nominee ousting 14 board members with no explanation.

- Promotion of IRS agents tied to House GOP impeachment attempts.

- Secretive dismantling of Ukraine child-abduction tracker program.

- Disinformation regarding autopen voiding Biden’s pardons.

- Alleged attempt to involve Trump family in Binance, which is seeking a pardon.

- Executive order to dismantle federal agencies, including watchdog and equity-focused ones.

- Misuse of executive power to attempt to deport lawfully present individuals without due process.

- DOJ filing to remove judge overseeing constitutional violation, refusing to attend court hearings.

- DOGE reconstructing website to obscure canceled contract details.

---

WASTE (Reckless destruction of necessary government functions and resources)

- Congress ceding budget and tariff authority to Trump, reducing oversight.

- Canceling programs and grants already appropriated by Congress.

- Firing thousands of federal workers, including scientists, educators, and civil servants.

- Elimination of EPA science office and rollback of environmental regulations.

- Halting USAID programs impacting public health and research institutions (e.g., Johns Hopkins).

- Dismantling Food Division at FDA and shuttering infant formula safety committees.

- Cutting staff at National Nuclear Security Administration during peak strategic need.

- Dismantling Radio Free Europe and Voice of America without lawful process.

- Canceling grants to Columbia and other schools unless they change policy on protests.

- Pulling student loan repayment options; firing 1,300 Education Department employees.

- Executive orders to abolish national monuments and dissolve protective orders.

- Demanding remote workers return while cutting building leases, harming SSA and public services.

- Attempting to shift FEMA responsibilities to underfunded local governments.

- Halting FBI background checks and replacing with minimal Pentagon vetting.

- Reassignment of disaster preparation roles away from federal structure.

- Starlink systems routed through White House/GSA data centers without full oversight.

- Executive order targeting DEI in Foreign Service and ordering retaliatory action.

- UCLA issuing “recession watch” as economic instability worsens due to tariffs and chaos.

- Calls to annex Greenland and deploy troops to Panama with unclear planning or necessity.

---

ABUSE (Policies designed to harm, distress, or instill fear)

- Threats to imprison political opponents; labeling DOJ officials “corrupt.”

- Attacks on judges, including demands for impeachment and incitement of harassment.

- Firing Shelly Lowe, Native American NEH head, without cause.

- Strip searches and restraint chairs used on migrants.

- Deportation threats and defiance of court orders (e.g., Khalil case).

- Advising foreign students not to publish views due to risk of deportation.

- Detention of visa holders (e.g., Dr. Alawieh, Jasmine Mooney) without clear cause.

- Use of Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans, many with no criminal record.

- Deporting individuals despite federal judge’s orders to halt.

- Defaming Judge Boasberg and threatening judicial independence.

- Expelling South Africa's ambassador over political criticism.

- Scrubbing DEI references from Arlington National Cemetery site.

- Ending gender-affirming care for veterans.

- AG Bondi labeling anti-Tesla vandalism “domestic terrorism” without due process.

- Spreading vaccine misinformation and suggesting bird flu be allowed to spread.

- Executing sweeping layoffs without evaluating performance or public service needs.

- Erasing public messaging promoting science and figures like Fauci.

- Blocking transgender military service via executive order.

- Intimidation of lawyers and law firms defending opposition interests.

- Labeling mainstream news (VOA, AP, Reuters) as “propaganda” to justify shutdowns.

- Forcing mass employee reassignments to distant offices.

- ICE intimidation tactics targeting peaceful protestors and legal residents.

- Doge staff forcibly entering U.S. Institute of Peace office.

- DOJ and ICE citing “lack of information” as reason for detaining individuals.

[deadgiants]

Weird to me how many people were surprised when Target dropped the DEI stuff like, they really convinced that many people? They put a rainbow corner somewhere in the store, and a kiosk in the aisle with a smiling black woman, and that somehow convinced people "this is the progressive store." Target was always evil. They just billed themselves as the "nice" big box store, better than walmart, cetainly. "Just look at how clean everything is, how uncrowded our layout."

When I was in high school, it was a known fact that Target was an insanely anti-union, homobhobic place to work. Part of the reason that was known to me at least was because a lot of queer kids worked there, and they knew and talked about how much it fucking sucked. Somewhere like that isn't gonna magically become better just cause; they just realized they could make more money by pandering and posturing at progressiveness while still being functionally the same company. All the while locking up essential shit to keep poor people out of the store, and lying that they were closing stores that were underperforming by saying it was because of theft. They commonly hired IPS for their security who are known for their brutal fucking treatement, and bigoted politics, whose COMPANY VEHICLES often have blue lives matter flags on them, or even punisher skulls.

This is what "you are not immune to propaganda" means, if the DEI rollback shook you, but the detergent behind locked doors didn't, you need to learn to think more critically about the world we exist in.

[thoughtlessarse]

French minister Aurore Bergé on Sunday accused the US embassy in Paris of trying to "impose a diktat" on French businesses after local media reported that companies had received a letter from embassy staff calling on them to comply with US President Donald Trump's executive order terminating diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes. A French minister on Sunday accused US diplomats of interfering in the operations of French companies by sending them a letter reportedly telling them that US President Donald Trump's rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives could also apply outside of the United States. French media said that the letter received by major French companies was signed by an officer of the US State Department who is on the staff at the US Embassy in Paris. The embassy didn't respond to questions this weekend from The Associated Press. Le Figaro daily newspaper published what it said was a copy of the letter. The document said that an executive order that Trump signed in January terminating DEI programmes within the federal government also “applies to all suppliers and service providers of the US Government, regardless of their nationality and the country in which they operate”. The document asked recipients to complete, sign and return within five days a separate certification form to demonstrate that they are in compliance. That form, also published by Le Figaro, said: “All Department of State contractors must certify that they do not operate any programmes promoting DEI that violate any applicable anti-discrimination laws.” 

continue reading

[mariacallous]

Meta told investors on Thursday that it remains committed to building “an inclusive workplace” full of “cognitive diversity,” even as the social media company moves to end its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. The statement was part of an annual earnings filing Meta made to the US Securities and Exchange Commission in which it removed mentions of DEI-related “learning and development courses” for employees, as well as statistics on the percentage of staff who identify as disabled, LGBTQ+, or from other underrepresented backgrounds.

“In early 2025, we announced changes to our diversity programs in light of the shifting legal and policy landscape,” Meta wrote in the filing. “We will continue to work to build an inclusive workplace where we can leverage our collective cognitive diversity to build the best products and make the best decisions for the global community we serve.”

The filing, known as a 10-K, maintains language from Meta’s 2023 version about how “a broad range of knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, and perspectives” leads to cognitive diversity and “fuels innovation.” The world’s biggest social media company disclosed it has about 74,000 employees globally, up 10 percent from a year ago. Overall, Meta said it grew its daily active users by 5 percent to 3.35 billion in 2024, while sales increased by 22 percent to over $164 billion.

Two current Meta employees told WIRED they are still upset about the DEI rollbacks announced earlier this month and believe many of their colleagues share the same sentiments. Janelle Gale, the company’s vice president for human resources, said at the time that Meta was eliminating a program that aimed to ensure candidates from underrepresented groups in the tech industry weren’t overlooked in its hiring practices. Cuts were also announced to efforts that promoted Meta working with a diverse slate of outside vendors, such as businesses owned by military veterans or women, as well as to training programs designed to engender respect in the workplace among people with different backgrounds and abilities.

Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton declined to comment on the revisions to its SEC filing. The company did not immediately respond to a separate request for comment on the concerns raised by some employees.

In a note to staff earlier this month, Gale cited the changing US legal landscape that is “signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI.” She added that the term had “become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others."

Some Meta employees say they have yet to notice any impacts internally. “I’m not convinced they are going to do anything at all. Could just remove mention of it and move on,” one staffer says. But the changes, which followed the relaxation of Meta’s hate speech policies for content shared on Instagram and Facebook, remain a constant source of discussion among workers, according to one of the employees.

Meta employees typically vote on which questions executives should address at companywide meetings. Ahead of such a gathering scheduled for Thursday, several of the most-endorsed questions were related to DEI. But Meta leadership have told employees that the popularity of a certain question no longer guarantees that it will be answered by company leadership, according to one of the employees. The New York Times earlier reported the change.

A number of US companies, including in the tech industry, removed mentions of diversity goals and programs in their annual filings about a year ago amid growing public criticism of the initiatives in the form of civil lawsuits and pressure from activist investors. A new round of cutbacks have been announced by retailers, restaurants, manufacturers, and tech developers as President Donald Trump returned to the White House this month.

Trump has repeatedly criticized DEI policies and programs, calling them “nonsense” and “discriminatory.” After he was inaugurated on January 20, Trump quickly moved to end DEI programs at agencies across the federal government.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has sought to warm his once-frosty relationship with the president over the past few months. On Wednesday, Meta and Trump reached an agreement to settle a lawsuit Trump filed over the temporary suspension of his user account after the January 6 Capitol insurrection, according to a federal court filing. Meta agreed to pay about $25 million, with most of the funds going toward Trump’s future presidential library, The Wall Street Journal reported. Dani Lever, a Meta spokesperson, confirmed the reporting to WIRED. Trump’s attorneys in the case did not respond to requests for comment.

Zuckerberg didn’t acknowledge the settlement on the company’s quarterly earnings call on Wednesday, but did applaud the president. “We now have a US administration that is proud of our leading companies, prioritizes American technology winning, and that will defend our values and interests abroad,” he said. “And I am optimistic about the progress and innovation that this can unwind.”

At Meta, the effect of the DEI cuts may be muted, in part, because the company has been working on trimming them for some time behind the scenes, according to a former Meta employee directly familiar with the changes. “It’s been a slow, painful death,” they say. After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, then chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg spearheaded the company’s increased commitments to diversity, including commissioning an internal civil rights audit. In its 2022 diversity report, Meta noted that it had doubled the number of women and Black staff members since 2019 as part of its diversity goals.

With Sandberg’s support, the former Meta employee says, “there was like this huge rush of energy to make a difference.” But in July 2022, Sandberg announced her departure from day-to-day operations at the company. Around that same time, the tech giant announced that it would start identifying teams to let go during upcoming widespread layoffs, which took place several months later. The eventual cuts affected some 11,000 people and were the first blow to Meta’s progress on diversity, the former employee alleges.

“Managers who were on these DEI teams were forced to either convert to non-manager roles or move to other teams that weren’t DEI. Teams with DEI in their names were disbanded,” the former employee says. They further allege that after the layoffs, Meta stopped hosting quarterly leadership meetings to discuss progress on DEI goals.

Asked about these allegations, Meta’s Clayton says the layoffs affected employees across the company.

Diversity advocates maintain that investing in DEI programs helps businesses perform better financially. Some companies, including Microsoft, have not announced recent changes to DEI programs or amended related sections in their SEC filings. This week, Netflix, one of the first major tech companies to publish its fourth quarter earnings report, bolstered its section on diversity. The company now says that it trains not only its recruiters, but also “our people leaders” on hiring “more inclusively.”

The streaming giant continues to state that diversity in the workplace is important to attracting subscribers. “We want more people and cultures to see themselves reflected on screen—so it’s important that our employee base is diverse and represents the communities we serve,” Netflix explains in its SEC filing. The company, which employs about 14,000 people, declined to further comment.