Meta (Facebook) ends DEI, in alignment with elections, legal decisions

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has announced it is eliminating its management team focused on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and will stop using DEI as a template for hiring.

The change comes after the November elections significantly altered the “legal and policy landscape surrounding” DEI, said Meta in a memo explaining the move.

The DEI changes come after the company announced Nick Clegg would be stepping down from Meta as president of global affairs. Clegg served previously as the deputy prime minister under the progressive Labour government in the United Kingdom.

Clegg will be replaced by Joel Kaplan, a Republican who served as deputy chief of staff under George W. Bush.

The DEI announcement by Meta was first reported by Axios, which obtained a copy of the company’s internal memo.

Earlier in the week, Meta’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said that the result of elections has made it clear that Meta would have to institute significant policy changes at the company.

Speaking with podcaster Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg said the elections gave the company the opportunity to take “the cultural pulse” of the country and see how people’s attitudes have changed.

While Meta reaffirmed its commitment to providing an environment where discrimination wouldn’t be tolerated, it also said that DEI has become problematic.

“The term ‘DEI’ has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others,” said the company’s memo.

Meta said it had already previously ended “representation goals for women and ethnic minorities.”

The company said that it would seek diversity of thinking by creating “cognitively diverse teams” concentrating on differences in “knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, perspectives and experiences.”

The company will also axe the policy of using “diversity efforts” to reward “diverse-owned businesses” as a part of its supply chain, according to the memo.  

Instead, the company will target a mix of small and medium sized businesses “that power much of our economy.”  

The Meta memo also announced the end of DEI training, to be replaced by programs that focus on how to “apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.” 

The Meta DEI statement comes as the company realigns itself with several developments – besides just the November general election – that make DEI policies unpopular and, possibly, illegal.   

In a 2023 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court found that universities were using DEI policies illegally to discriminate against people on the basis of race in their admissions processes. The decision signaled that the court could also find against companies that use DEI practices for hiring. 

And in fact, the court is expected to decide such a case this year.     

Companies such as McDonald’s, automaker Ford, Walmart, John Deere, as well as Tractor Supply, Harley Davidson, Jack Daniel’s, Molson Coors and Lowe’s, have joined the ranks of a growing number of companies ditching DEI.   

Meta has announced other changes, signaling a shift to the right, including the discontinuation of fact-checking, change of content moderation policies and the re-emphasis of political content on the site, which was previously deemphasized in user feeds under pressure by Democrats.