By Kurt Wagner and Jeff Green | Bloomberg
Meta is disbanding many of its diversity and inclusion efforts, telling employees they will no longer be required to interview candidates from under-represented backgrounds for open roles, or look to do business with diverse suppliers.
The note to employees, shared with Bloomberg News verbally, represents a significant undoing of diversity, equity and inclusion priorities at the company. Maxine Williams, Meta’s chief diversity officer and highest-ranking black woman, will be reassigned to a new role, the memo states.
Also see: No more fact-checking for Meta. How will this change media — and the pursuit of truth?
Axios earlier reported the news, which a Meta spokesperson confirmed.
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Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has been working to appeal to President-elect Donald Trump, who he recently met in person at Mar-a-Lago, after years of tension with the politician. Earlier this week, Zuckerberg halted Meta’s work with third-party fact-checking organizations.
Meta on Tuesday also updated its policies around what kind of content could be removed on its sites. These changes included new provisions allowing its users to at times wield insulting language “when discussing transgender rights, immigration or homosexuality” as well as to argue for gender or sexual orientation-based limitations on military, law enforcement and teaching jobs.
The new policy also removed protections against language that describes women as “household objects or property” as well as dehumanizing language focused on Black, transgender and non-binary people.
Meta joins companies including Walmart Inc. and McDonald’s Corp in a retreat from DEI policies. Following the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action in college admissions, legal challenges to corporate diversity programs aimed at boosting underrepresented groups have prompted executives to review the initiatives. Trump, a vocal critic of DEI policies, has promised to root out the efforts from the federal government.
As of 2023, Meta was a majority Asian company, at 51% Asian and 36% white, according to Bloomberg analysis of the data the company reports to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission each year. Percentages of Black and Hispanic workers, at 3.5% and 6%, respectively, have seen slight declines since 2020. Meta had among the biggest decline in Black managers among 84 S&P 100 companies from 2022 to 2023.
–With assistance from Riley Griffin.
