Only a few years ago, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, corporate America embraced diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Walmart, CEO Doug McMillan issued a statement as protests were happening across the country. Social justice and equity are essential parts of our core business. But today, Walmart says it will not renew the funding for the racial equity center at launched back in 2020.

It joins McDonald's, Amazon, Facebook, and many others who are ending some diversity programs,

aligning with President Trump's mission to dismantle DEI initiatives here in the U.S.

I will also end the government policy of trying to socially engineer race and gender into

every aspect of public and private life.

While there has been immediate pushback to these mandates, some critics say that even back

in 2020, corporate America didn't take DEI seriously.

Portia Allen Kyle runs Color of Change, a nonprofit

focused on racial justice. The many who, you know, just wanted to sprinkle some DEI on top,

especially after George Floyd. And like, that was never going to be a viable strategy.

Seikou Burmese is a management professor at UNC Chapel Hill,

and he is unimpressed with how some companies rushed into their DEI promises.

It was being pitched as kind of this,

oh, diversity's always going to help the bottom line.

And that, no one would ever say that, that actually studies this.

They'd say sometimes yes, sometimes no, but it's never always.

Consider this as DEI initiatives unravel across the U.S.

How should we think about diversity moving forward?

From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

Okay. From NPR, I'm Juana Summers. It's Consider this from NPR.

Super Bowl weekend is coming up, and the NFL is removing the words

and racism from the end zone, replacing them with the words, choose love.

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