Google is following the Trump administration’s lead on purging diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, cutting mentions of DEI from its annual report and scrapping its goal of hiring applicants from historically underrepresented backgrounds.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, removed language stating its commitment to DEI in its annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, published Tuesday. Google said this week that it will no longer use hiring targets to improve representation among its employees, according to The Wall Street Journal.
NBC News reported that Google also amended its diversity website in the past week, including changing a top executive’s position from “Chief Diversity Officer” to “VP, People Operations.”
A number of other major companies have taken a similarly anti-DEI path in the last month, as President Donald Trump seeks to expand his aggressive attacks on diversity initiatives to the private sector. In his first week in office, Trump signed executive orders to place employees working on DEI initiatives on leave and to eliminate DEI programs across the federal government. He also ordered the Justice Department to identify companies engaging in “‘illegal discrimination and preferences,’ including DEI.”
Since then, Meta, Amazon, Target, Walmart and others have reversed their DEI policies. Several other large companies have resisted the threats, saying they will not cut back on those initiatives.
DEI programs, especially those adopted by corporations, have their shortcomings, but advocates have been pushing back hard on the right-wing narrative that such initiatives foster so-called reverse discrimination. Although much of the criticism of DEI programs centers on claims that they encourage hirings and promotions based on race or gender, these efforts are in fact aimed at increasing representation and inclusion in the workforce of a wide spectrum of demographic categories, including parents, veterans, noncollege degree holders and people with disabilities.