Following the nationwide protests after the police killing of George Floyd in May of 2020, many companies began endorsing more initiatives aimed at encouraging diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).These policies were made with the intent to promote fair treatment and participation from underrepresented groups.These ideas originated in 1965 after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed executive order (E.O.) 11246. This order required government contractors to take affirmative action when hiring to promote equal opportunity for women and minorities.
Leading up to the inauguration of Pres. Donald Trump, many companies across the U.S. began to scale back or entirely eliminate their DEI programs, including companies such as Walmart, Meta Platforms, McDonalds and more. This scaling back of DEI initiatives has also been seen throughout universities in the U.S., with state universities in Alabama, Texas, Florida and more being prohibited from having DEI offices. Following his inauguration, Trump signed E.O. 14151 titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” which places federal employees involved in DEI initiatives on paid leave and shuts down government run DEI websites and social media accounts. These decisions have been met with a great deal of criticism, with the American Association of University Professors, the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United and Baltimore’s mayor and city council filing a federal lawsuit in an attempt to block his orders targeting DEI.
“I think the entire DEI reduction is going to impact our country in more ways than one,” said University of New Haven freshman Jordiyn Wilder. “This is one of the main ways women, POC (people of color) and the LGBTQIA+ are able to get their voices heard in respective places.”
Wilder is not alone in this sentiment. Fellow freshman Paola Hidalgo said, “DEI programs allow people to express themselves to their full extent, and while companies are taking them away, they are stripping away basic human rights.”
Meta Platforms is one of the largest companies to have gotten rid of its DEI program, which included policies for training, hiring and picking its suppliers. The announcement was made by Meta Vice President Janelle Gale through the company’s Workplace forum for internal communication, which faced criticism from its own employees, with one employee commenting “simply absolving ourselves from the duty to at least try to create a safe and respective platform is a really sad direction to take.” This change did not come suddenly, with Meta having announced changes in leadership and in its speech policy, which also faced heavy criticism from many online.
“Removing DEI and relaxing hate speech guidelines allows people to be as brutal as they want on the internet, allowing people to feel unsafe and unwanted,” said Hidalgo. The specific policy change mentioned was the plan to end Meta’s use of third party fact checkers, and focus on using user created community notes instead, similar to those found in X, formerly known as Twitter. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this change in a video posted to Instagram on Jan. 7, with Meta posting an announcement on their website the same day. Zuckerberg explained the reasoning behind the decision, saying fact checkers had been too politically biased, and addressed potential concerns about the change in Meta’s speech policy.
“It means we are going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down,” Zuckerberg said. Many were not convinced by his reasoning, with Instagram user @keeferdin commenting “Hi! So facts cannot be biased. That’s why they’re facts. You’re thinking of opinions. Hope this helps, you sellout.”
The university remains committed to its DEI initiatives. The Myatt Center’s Assistant Director, Kenneth Notarino-Jeffrey said, “Regardless of what happens in our world, the Myatt Center for Diversity & Inclusion, as well as the Inclusive Excellence Division, is dedicated to ensuring all members of our community feel safe, seen and supported.” For questions regarding the university’s diversity and inclusion initiatives, you can contact CDI@newhaven.edu.
