Over 200 S&P 500 companies scrubbing “diversity” and “equity” from their 2025 annual report
200 S&P 500 or more (^gspc) According to law firms and data provider Freshfields, the 2025 annual report scrubbing words like “diversity” and “equity,” with nearly 60% of S&P 500 companies using the phrase “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
These new counts offered by Freshfields will bolster growing corporate retreats from DEI this year after scrutiny of diversity policies in Washington, DC
On his first day in office, President Trump signed an executive order that ended the federal DEI program and ordered US agencies to “fight illegal private sector DEI actions.”
Some large companies including the alphabet (Goog, googl), meta (Meta), McDonald’s (MCD), Amazon (amzn), jpmorgan (JPM),target(TGT), and tractor supply (TSCO) has been actively announced Their diversity aspect policy.
Tractor Supply CEO Hal Lawton He told Yahoo Finance Last month, the company’s goal in changing DEI policies was to “delet it itself” from any kind of discourse that people deemed political or social in that direction.
Many also exchange terms such as “diversity” and “fair” from their annual reports, and instead use terms such as inclusion, belonging, and meritocratic workplace.
“We are observing language changes,” said Cosmaspapadouplos, executive director of the ISS squad.
Bank of America (bac) and Black Rock (blk) was among the Wall Street businesses that made such changes.
Bank of America removed all eight references to “diversity and inclusion” in its report filed in February compared to previous year’s submissions.
In some places, the country’s second largest bank has replaced “diversity” with “opportunity.” This includes diversity and inclusion groups opportunities and inclusion groups within the HR sector.
BlackRock, the world’s largest money manager, has removed four references to “diversity” in its latest annual report. This has been replaced with a section entitled “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” called “Connectivity and Inclusion.”
JPMorgan Chase also removed almost all of its “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Annual Report We have rebranded our diversity programme into an “opportunity” initiative.
“No one knows what to do.”
What has not happened so far in 2025 is shareholder support for any type of DEI change.
None of the investor-led DEI-focused proposals this season that voted on this season were approved by a majority shareholder, but the proportion of “anti-DEI” submissions compared to “parent” submissions has jumped in recent years.