Comment by sdcfgy
5 days ago
DEI didn’t implode. It stopped being a valuable marketing exercise for most companies as it wasn’t trending on social media any more.
5 days ago
DEI didn’t implode. It stopped being a valuable marketing exercise for most companies as it wasn’t trending on social media any more.
It became a liability - corporates were legally threatened
This really didn't happen over here in Europe at all. That was mostly a US thing. Here it just faded out as it couldn't be leveraged.
At our place, it did not influence hiring decisions other than having a formal DEI position in the org which was disposed of almost immediately when it was seen as a cost and not a benefit.
Trump's threats were international and European businesses and media were very much talking about it at the time. Here's two examples from April 2025, the first is in Swedish:
* https://riks.se/nyheter/wallenberg%C3%A4gda-ericsson-tonar-n...
* https://swedenherald.com/article/ericsson-ceo-explains-dropp...
Here's one example.
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Source for _legally_ ?
(Legally as in, using the legal system)
DOJ sued Deloitte over DEI programs, they ended up settling for $21.5 million: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/deloitte-pay-215-mi...
Texas Attorney General declared DEI initiatives unconstitutional in a legal opinion: https://www.gibsondunn.com/texas-attorney-general-declares-p...
Several state Attorneys General sent legal threats to 20 major law firms over DEI: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republican-led-states-deman...
Texas Attorney General warned major banks that DEI programs violate feduciary duty: https://today.westlaw.com/Document/Ibce2fdc5dcec11efb708bbad...
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Don't know about corporates, but Harvard was sued[0] for DEI-esque discrimination.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v...
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Every statement from company officials such as "we only employ women" or "toxic males", can be used as evidence at court. It is very difficult to prove bias from vague sanitized corporate language, direct "activist" statements make proving such bias very easy. For example recent lawsuit with IBM!
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There's a case going through the courts for Red Hat right now where they based managerial bonuses on how diverse their teams were, which reportedly led to them pushing out white males.
Such should rightfully be illegal.
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Companies couldn't hide their blatant racism and sexism behind DEI any longer. Corporates were legally threatened for violating Civil Rights laws.
While cynical, there is a lot of truth to your statement. I wish the activist type would realize that they are actually being used, but it appears there isn't much chance they will ever listen to the old dogs in this game.
That is exactly it. A good perspective: the activists were being used.