UK HR professionals are watching with interest to see whether today’s inauguration of Donald Trump as US president will have a ripple effect on UK diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Reports from Washington suggest that the DEI office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been closed in advance of Trump’s return to the White House, with the president-elect demanding that the department “preserve and retain all records, documents and information”.
“Never should have been opened and, if it was, should have closed long ago. Why is it that they’re closing one day before the Inauguration of a new Administration? The reason is, CORRUPTION!”, Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
Trump and DEI
Before the election, Trump labelled DEI programmes “anti-white racism” and “un-American”.
Towards the end of his first term in 2020, Trump signed an executive order banning diversity training in government agencies, contractors and institutions that receive federal funding, but the administration was hit with lawsuits over First Amendment violations, so the ban was blocked by a federal judge.
This time, he has promised a flurry of executive orders on his first day as president, including one that will ban DEI policies in the military. Some experts predict he may use an executive order to forbid federal funding going to schools and other institutions that have DEI programmes, and for schools that teach critical race theory.
He has also indicated he will introduce strict anti-immigration policies within days.
Big employers including Meta and Amazon have already scaled back their diversity programmes ahead of Trump’s second term in office.
McDonald’s also made a statement in January that it would retire goals introduced in 2021 intended to encourage leaders to improve DEI, despite being the focus of a controversy over sexual harassment.
Billionaire tech founder Elon Musk, who will head up a new Department of Government Efficiency, has said he will move to shut down government DEI initiatives, even blaming diversity schemes for the response to the Los Angeles wildfires. On his X social media platform, he said: “DEI means people will DIE”.
Bridge Partners, a recruitment company, found in 2024 that two-thirds of American companies were still prioritising DEI schemes, but this was down from 77% a year earlier.
The board of tech giant Apple recently asked investors to vote against a proposal to abandon its DEI programmes, after it was advised by a conservative thinktank that it should shut them down.
Charlie O’Brien, head of people at HR software company Breathe HR, said she hoped UK employers would “understand that the actions of the US cousins are shortsighted, driven by the president-elect’s anti-DEI rhetoric as opposed to sound business logic”.
“There is so much evidence in favour of promoting DE&I in the workplace. Research shows that cognitively diverse teams solve problems faster and companies with greater gender and ethnic diversity are more profitable than their less diverse counterparts,” she added.
“Plus, DE&I schemes can help to prevent discrimination: a commitment which British employers have an obligation to uphold. The pursuit of diversity, equity and inclusion must remain a priority for UK businesses, regardless of the myopic actions of high-profile corporations across the pond.”
Khyati Sundaram, CEO of AI hiring company Applied, said there was a risk that further DEI cutbacks could be on the horizon.
“Companies cite caution around more conservative policies, which could see DEI programmes as unfairly giving preferential treatment to some groups over others,” she said.
“Whether or not changes to the legal landscape carry across the pond remains to be seen. But DEI efforts closer to home are becoming buried in similar sentiment regardless. This is revealing a bigger problem.
“When minority workers fear being seen as a ‘token hire’ or ‘lawsuit risk’, it’s a clear sign that DEI schemes themselves are broken.
“The aim should be to create equal opportunities for all workers to succeed. Both US and UK companies must focus on this now more than ever, starting by silencing biases which prevent hiring teams from assessing job candidates objectively. Those who do will see diversity follow organically.”
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