Meta and Amazon are cutting back on their diversity programs. The two companies are joining other corporate America companies that have reined back their hiring and training programs that have drawn criticism from the Conservative side for being ‘legally and politically risky’ Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has also announced similar item regarding their fact-evaluation program which drew ire from President Donald Trump, and Prominent Republicans. The line of the memo is that the other issue creeping in slowly is that American law is rapidly maturing. Thus, these programs may not be legally permissible soon. In due course of time, America may come to find such attempts to be legally unbearable, alongside pushing for overly-politicized policies from tech giants like Meta and Amazon. Walmart and McDonald’s are unanimously reaching the same quell with these diversity programs after Trump was declared the US president again. Meta issued a memo earlier on, which stated the broad definition of DEI has become a ‘meta load’ of some sort and added that there was a TLC ruling directed at gender bias. Also, Meta pointed at TLC ruling over gender bias as a directive. As per the Reuters report: The technology company would still seek staff from a wide cUSe of candidates, and to encourage the whole range of employees through the use of hiring incentives. But this time, after interviewing candidates, the approach would be different. Former US president Joe Biden further, in a speech, spoke of practical ideas to address inequality in the workplace, which echo sentiments held by Amazon – that diversity should be a skill and never felt as a burden.
“In this transition, we have been phasing out old programs and materials, and our goal is to finish that transition by the end of 2024,” Sharma, Amazon’s VP of engaging experiences and technology, said in his December letter to employees, as reported by Bloomberg.
The changes involve integrating “employee groups” under one structure, she explained.
However, this week, financial companies JPMorgan pleat significance and BlackRock also withdrew from climate change risk groups.
The moves indicate an acceleration of a withdrawal from two years ago, in which Republicans intensified their warfare on resettlement companies such as BlackRock or Disney with their support of a “woke” progressive agenda because of political retaliation threats.
Celebrity brands such as Bud Light and Target have also been targeted and boycotted over the attempt to get the attention of transgender customers.
Some of the appointments around diversity, equity and inclusion come from the global response after the black lives matter protests following the plague of George Floyd, murdered by police in 2020.
Recent court decisions have lent support to critics of the programs, who argued that they were discriminatory.
The US Supreme Court in 2023 abolished the admission policy by private institutions that considered race as a factor in admissions policies.
The Nasdaq had also been compelled to drop a regulation that stated any company that fails to appoint at least one woman, LGBTQ or racial minority to their board has to explain.
For instance, Meta has also ended its practice of attempting to source from “diverse” suppliers, turning instead to SMEs.
Moreover, Meta plans to abolish their diversity and inclusion training and replace it with programs that prevent discrimination against everyone, irrespective of their history.
Meta has not commented on the memo. It was expectedly criticized and lauded.
Starbucks, on the other hand, has relished in the report as he singlehandedly campaigned against “diversity policies” of companies like Ford, Harley Davidson, and John Deere. “I’m sitting back and enjoying every second of this,” he said while in celebration.
However, the Human Rights Campaign stated that without such policies, it becomes hard to retain employees and remain competitive in the market while being good for the company long term.
RaShawn “Shawnie” Hawkins, senior director for the HRC Foundation’s Workplace Equality Program, stated, “Those who abandon these commitments are shirking their responsibility to their employees, consumers, and shareholders.”
Meta’s action comes only a few hours after the technology behemoth announced it would be discontinuing a fact-checking initiative that had been harmful to Trump and Republicans while also placing conservatives in pivotal leadership positions.
Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, was worried about being an authority on “truth.” He believed he was “not ready” to deal with the perspective after the election in 2016 while having a nearly two-hour conversation with a podcaster, Joe Rogan.
With the onset of the Biden administration, he said his company began to receive inappropriate requests to delete information. For instance, he stated that during the pandemic, there was a similar campaign against the content that spoke about the side effects of vaccines.
According to him, this and additional factors caused a much deeper political crisis. It also had an impact on him and his perspective.
He claims that he now feels confident in defining the policies that ought to be implemented. He went on to emphasize that the American government “must protect the interest of its businesses… instead of engaging at the frontier.”
To that, he added, “When the US acts this way towards its tech industry, it’s a free-for-all out there for the rest of the world”
