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A major shift is underway in the way large companies talk about and fund Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs.
President Donald Trump began the transition when he signed an executive order last month eliminating DEI policies and staff at the federal government and extending the anti-DEI policy to federal contractors.
Private companies, some of which had already begun the transition before Trump took office, remarkably began backing off their DEI policies, even if only symbolically with little internal change.
Costco resisted, pushing back on the Trump administration, but other major brands like Amazon Wal-Mart, Target, and Meta announced a pullback from DEI. Media reports indicated DEI discussions on earnings calls has plummeted.
Others, such as Wisconsin-based financial services company Fiserv, have not yet made a change, at least not publicly.
A murky legal future awaits companies willing to take the risk to stick with DEI policies, particularly in hiring.
Fiserv receives hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts.
According to Fiserv’s website’s Diversity & Inclusion page, the company is “committed to promoting diversity and inclusion (D&I) across all levels of the organization, in our communities and throughout our industry."
Fiserv says that it “partner[s] with people and organizations around the world to advance our D&I efforts and create opportunities for our employees, entrepreneurs around the world and the next generation of innovators.”
The company's diversity and inclusion page includes a careers section that discusses “engaging diverse talent” and events to connect with “diverse candidates.”
Critics of DEI initiatives and policies say they discriminate against white men and Asians and lead to hiring and promotion decisions based on factors such as race and sexual orientation rather than merit.
In its 2023 Corporate Social Responsibility Report, the company boasted that "60% of director nominees for the 2024 annual meeting reflect gender or racial/ethnic diversity."
According to an April 2024 report from Payments Dive, Fiserv was “buoyed by sales to government entities” in Q1 of 2024 and reported $500 million in revenue from those contracts. The U.S. Coast Guard contracted with Fiserv in 2024 to help with payroll, according to HigherGov, among other government contracts.
Fiserv did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
A watershed moment against DEI came when during the Biden administration, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against longstanding affirmative action policies at American universities, one key example of white and Asian Americans being discriminated against.
Trump’s election has only solidified the new legal framework for what is permissible when considering race and gender in hiring, promotion, and workplace etiquette.
From Trump’s order:
In the private sector, many corporations and universities use DEI as an excuse for biased and unlawful employment practices and illegal admissions preferences, ignoring the fact that DEI’s foundational rhetoric and ideas foster intergroup hostility and authoritarianism.
Billions of dollars are spent annually on DEI, but rather than reducing bias and promoting inclusion, DEI creates and then amplifies prejudicial hostility and exacerbates interpersonal conflict.
DEI has become increasingly controversial as activists use the moniker to advance every liberal policy on race and gender, often at taxpayer expense. In the federal government, DEI had become widespread and infiltrated into every part of governance, from racial quotas for promotions at the Pentagon to driving healthcare research at the National Institutes of Health.
At private companies, DEI policies guided investment decisions via ESG (Environmental, Social Governance) as well as personnel decisions with racial quotas for company board rooms. Those ideas are out of favor with the Trump administration.
Some of the companies resisting the shift from DEI could face legal action.
A coalition of state attorneys general sent a letter to Costco alleging it is violating the law, as The Center Square previously reported.
“Although Costco’s motto is 'do the right thing,' it appears that the company is doing the wrong thing – clinging to DEI policies that courts and businesses have rejected as illegal,” the letter said.
This week, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a lawsuit against Starbucks for similar policies.
"By making employment decisions based on characteristics that have nothing to do with one’s ability to work well, Starbucks, for example, hires people by thumbing the scale based on at least one of Starbucks’ preferred immutable characteristics rather than an evaluation of an applicant’s merit and qualifications,” the lawsuit said. “Making hiring decision on non-merit considerations will skew the hiring pool towards people who are less qualified to perform their work, increasing costs for Missouri’s consumers."
A 2022 Starbucks document touts a DEI goal: “By 2025, our goal is to achieve BIPOC representation of at least 30% at all corporate levels and at least 40% at all retail and manufacturing roles.”
Bailey called the Starbucks policies discriminatory and illegal.
"With Starbucks’ discriminatory patterns, practices, and policies, Missouri’s consumers are required to pay higher prices and wait longer for goods and services that could be provided for less had Starbucks employed the most qualified workers, regardless of their race, color, sex, or national origin,” Bailey said. “As Attorney General, I have a moral and legal obligation to protect Missourians from a company that actively engages in systemic race and sex discrimination. Racism has no place in Missouri. We’re filing suit to halt this blatant violation of the Missouri Human Rights Act in its tracks."
The White House over the weekend touted its progress on the southern border as President Donald Trump completed his fourth week back in office.
"Encounters of illegal immigrants at our southern border are plummeting and migrants are starting to realize it’s fruitless to attempt to illegally cross our border," the White House said Saturday in a statement.
Upon taking office, Trump issued a series of executive orders ending Biden administration policies that allowed asylum seekers to flood into America. On his second day in office, the president sent 1,500 active-duty service members and additional air and intelligence assets.
Border crossing attempts are down more than 90% from the same time last year, according to data first obtained by the New York Post.
“Border numbers are down over 90% in three weeks,” Tom Homan, the pick by Trump called border czar, said during an interview on Fox News. “When you got 90% less people coming across the border, how many women aren’t being raped by the cartels? How many children aren’t drowning? How many women and children aren’t being sex trafficked in this country? President Trump is a gamechanger.”
Multiple media reports indicate many people headed from other countries to the United States have since changed their mind and headed back home.
The White House pointed out a Wednesday story from The Washington Times showing officials in Costa Rica and Panama are meeting to discuss how to handle the large number of people who had been waiting in Mexico to enter the United States but have since given up and are returning to South America.
The administration also linked a Thursday story from Telemundo saying "migrants from Honduras, El Salvador, Columbia and Venezuela are heading back home" instead of continuing to America. And the White House linked a Thursday story from El Cronista saying the Mexican government provided a $9.3 million contract for 140 shelters to help with people "returning to Mexico."
Policies during the Biden administration allowed 12 million people to enter the country, most given dates to appear with immigration officials much later. The volume pushed many of those appointments beyond a year and even 18 months. A surge in fentanyl accompanied the timing.
Trump, the second term Republican, has reversed the trend. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and specifically ICE Enforcement and Removal regional offices, across the country have helped move many people illegally in the country back to their native homelands.
Trump also threatened tariffs against Mexico if it did not help fix the problem. To temporarily avert the tariffs, Mexico’s president agreed to deploy thousands more troops to the southern border.
In another reversal, the Biden administration worked – including litigation – to block Texas from installing border security measures like barbed wire and buoys in the river to keep people from swimming across.
In a social media post Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote, “Texas installed more buoys into the Rio Grande the SAME day President Trump returned to office. The Biden administration tried – and FAILED – to keep Texas from using this effective border security tactic.
“Now, we have a President who is partnering with Texas to deny illegal entry.”
