Meta and Amazon reportedly killed their DEI programs in recent days – moves that come as both Big Tech giants attempt to cozy up to President-elect Donald Trump.
On Friday, Meta – the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and Threads – said it will no longer take the controversial Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies into consideration before hiring, training and picking suppliers, Axios reported.
According to a memo sent by Janelle Gale, vice president of human resources, she said the company is pivoting away from DEI because the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing.”
A Meta spokesperson reached by The Post confirmed the memo, which was first obtained by Axios.
Meta’s about-face came just days after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company would scrap censoring free speech on its popular social media platforms.
Both Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have recently met with Trump as part of an ongoing thaw in once-frosty relations between the Republican and the tech industry.
In a memo to Amazon employees last month, Candi Castleberry, a senior human resources executive, said the company was “winding down outdated programs and materials” after reviewing hundreds of programs, including some that were already completed.
Bloomberg first reported on the memo on Friday.
“Rather than have individual groups build programs, we are focusing on programs with proven outcomes — and we also aim to foster a more truly inclusive culture,” Castleberry said, according to the report.
Amazon also recently nixed sections with the titles Equity for Black people and LGBTQ+ rights from a webpage detailing company stances, The Information reported.
The sections were replaced with a passage stating Amazon is committed “to creating a diverse and inclusive company that helps us build the best range of products and services for our broad customer base.”
“We update this page from time to time to ensure that it reflects updates we’ve made to various programs and positions,” spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement.
The Post has reached out to Amazon for comment.
Gale’s memo noted that DEI has “become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”
Meta will instead institute programs “that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background,” Gale wrote.
The memo was posted to Workplace, the internal company messaging board that employees have used in recent days to protest Zuckerberg’s decision to end partnerships with third-party fact-checkers, as well as the naming of pro-Trump MMA entrepreneur Dana White to the board of directors.
The new policy means that Meta will dismantle its team devoted to DEI. Maxine Williams, the firm’s chief diversity officer, will be reassigned to a new role within the company, according to Axios.
Meta will no longer aim to attain “representation goals” since they “can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender,” Gale wrote.
“While this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it,” she said.
DEI, which was initially aimed at diversifying the workforce, has been criticized as a means to implement reverse discrimination that disadvantages white applicants and de-emphasizes merit.
Fortune 500 companies rushed to institute DEI in the wake of the Black Lives Matter-led demonstrations that were touched off by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020.
Since then, however, public pressure campaigns by right-leaning influencers such as Robby Starbuck have succeeded in forcing firms to either pare back or eliminate the programs.
Among the brands that have retreated from DEI in recent months include Walmart, Ford Motor Company, Molson Coors, Jack Daniel’s parent company Brown-Forman, Boeing and Harley Davidson.
Earlier this week, McDonald’s said it was ending some of its DEI practices — citing a Supreme Court decision that outlawed affirmative action in college admissions.
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