On January 20, the day Donald Trump took office for his second term, he signed 26 executive orders. One of these was titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing”. He then directed that all federal DEI staff be placed on paid leave and, eventually, laid off. The next day, he rescinded Executive Order 11246, a cornerstone of equal opportunity policy used to fight workplace discrimination since 1965. By the end of the month, at his first news conference since the midair collision over the Potomac River, Trump was suggesting diversity, equity and inclusion could have been responsible for the plane crash that killed 67 people. “For some jobs – and not only this but air traffic controllers – they have to be at the highest level of genius,” he said. Only what this administration constitutes as “genius” doesn’t mean anything more than what looks back at them in the mirror (white and male). As Trump wages war on diversity initiatives, where does that leave America’s DEI workers?

Catherine, a DEI specialist in the healthcare space whose name has been changed for the sake of anonymity, says it’s “impossible to ignore” the shifts happening in the DEI space right now. “I’m still here doing business as usual,” she says. “But these shifts will have significant direct and indirect impacts on our work; they will affect DEI initiatives at the grassroots level and reshape the way we move forward.” DEI in the healthcare industry is critical – especially when considering America’s many major health disparities – which is why Catherine still firmly believes her future is in DEI. “This work must continue unimpeded by fear,” she says. “Like many organisations, ours is working to chart a path forward. The question remains: Where do we go from here?”

Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives can take many shapes, from hiring initiatives to training on racism, gender discrimination and sexual harassment. For the right, they’ve become a personified enemy, and positioning the ominous “DEI” as evil comes straight out of Trump’s favourite playbook. It’s something he’s done many times before with immigration: after a terrorist attack in New Orleans just over a month ago, he blamed illegal immigration, even though the attacker was born in Texas. But the idea that DEI can “ruin” the country and even crash planes has been more than welcomed by large American corporations looking to cut down on DEI costs with false reasoning. In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against race-based affirmative action, and since then, many companies have already been quietly ending or altering their DEI programs. 

I’m torn because I feel like I should guard my place, but I also feel like I have to keep my head on the swivel. It’s been hard before; you're constantly trying to break that third wall, but I don't even think there’s gonna be a shatter in the glass now we’re surrounded by ceilings and walls

Late last year, telecommunications company Verizon quietly folded their annual Adfellows programme, a nine-month rotational fellowship founded in 2017 that provided career growth opportunities for diverse candidates. Ava, a former Adfellows alumni whose name has been changed for the sake of anonymity, pivoted her career to work in DEI for Verizon after the programme. “Adfellows exposed me to a corporate career that I never would have had the chance and opportunity to be considered for,” she says. After being laid off from her role in December, Ava says she felt “blindsided” by the company. “They were using language that they were going to continue to support DEI and maintain their commitment, but firing half the team doesn’t necessarily mirror that language,” she says. “I do think it was a direct correlation between Trump being elected.”

As she searches for a new role, Ava remains hopeful that DEI work will continue under a different name. “I don’t think people will explicitly say DEI professional,” she says. “There will be new labels in order to be in line with the current trends of the market as well as the administration.” One of her fellow Adfellow alums, Tanya, whose name has also been changed because she still works at Verizon, isn’t as optimistic about her future both at the company and in the country. “I’m torn because I feel like I should guard my place, but I also feel like I have to keep my head on the swivel,” she says. “It’s been hard before; you’re constantly trying to break that third wall, but I don’t even think there’s gonna be a shatter in the glass now we’re surrounded by ceilings and walls.”

Even as an employee, Tanya learned about the DEI cuts at Verizon under a “veil of secrecy”. “There had always been whispers that everyone wasn’t a big supporter of the program,” she says. “But that was an unspoken thing.” Now, she’s concerned about how this will change the creative output in the advertising space. “It’s going back to a one-sided visual, and I just don’t think the creativity is gonna be there,” she says. “By removing people from the room, all of the ideas will be a monolith.” As ideologies shift across the US, Clarice Metzger, a Sierra Leonean American strategist, is keeping an eye on what companies choose to align with the changes. “In beauty, cutting back on DEI efforts goes far beyond just featuring a Black model, an Asian model and a wheelchair-bound model in marketing collateral,” she says. “When inclusion is deprioritised, beauty brands risk stifling their own growth.”

Metzger currently works in the UK but has US clients. She says that DEI conversations look different in both corporate environments. “Broadly speaking, US discussions tend to centre on race and ethnicity, while in the UK, the focus often skews toward sex and gender – though there’s certainly nuance in both,” she says. Perhaps this is why white women conservatives in the US who supported DEI rollbacks are now learning on social media that it’s actually white women who have disproportionally benefited from corporate DEI efforts in the US. Still, the knock-on effects will, no doubt, reach far beyond America’s borders. “What happens in the US inevitably ripples across the UK in some shape or form, and we’re already seeing that influence take shape,” says Metzger. “With conservative rhetoric gaining traction on both sides of the Atlantic, brands are likely to rethink their approach – not necessarily abandoning DEI, but adapting how it’s framed, communicated and implemented.”

I think the biggest barrier right now is how we understand power in the workplace. We’re never going to get access and inclusion with this top-down approach

According to Metzger, brands are already adopting words like “belonging” to sidestep the political weight that “DEI” now carries – though it’s unsure what the latest corporate rhetoric actually means. Amarilis Pullen, a BIPOC executive and leadership coach and founder of Raíces Coaching and Consulting, believes much of corporate DEI, in general, has been a reluctant “performance” from brands wanting to appear a certain way. This is only proven further by how willing they are to drop their initiatives. “They come in and ask us to help them solve cultural issues in their organisation, but they’re actually structural, systemic issues,” she says. “You see this in nonprofits where the program staff are diverse but no senior leaders, right? There’s no accountability.”

America clearly needs diversity initiatives – only nine per cent of workers say they haven’t experienced discrimination due to race, gender, disability, age or body size in the workplace – and Pullen says the words “fairness, access, inclusion and representation” (a new FAIR framework by Lily Zheng) are becoming more critical than ever. “I think the biggest barrier right now is how we understand power in the workplace,” says Pullen. “We’re never going to get access and inclusion with this top-down approach.” Amid the current war on diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI workers are committed to not abandoning the cause, even if it means using different terms and becoming more strategic. As usual, they know the change won’t come from the imagination of the white men in power (and especially not the ones in this administration).