On the campaign trail, Donald Trump promoted the concept that white Americans were targets of racism and made reversing Joe Biden’s “woke takeover” of Washington a priority of his second term in office. 

Now with Republicans in control of the White House and both branches of Congress in 2025, the president-elect is in a position to make excellent on his promises to crack down on corporations that do business with the federal government. 

On the chopping block: Diversity, stake and inclusion programs.

“President Trump has been very obvious about ending the woke, DEI garbage infecting this country and the American people voted overwhelmingly to do just that,” said Trump spokesman Steven Cheung.

Trump is staffing his government with loyalists who desire to de-“woke” America, from Pete Hegseth, a Fox information host and decorated combat veteran who is Trump’s selection to be Pentagon chief, to Brendan Carr, Trump’s pick for Federal Communications percentage chairman.

Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s longtime aides who was tapped as a top policy architect in the recent administration, has spent the last four years spoiling for this fight, filing dozens of legal actions against “woke” corporations. 

“As every day passes and you read more about the types of people he is appointing to different positions, organizations have to receive this very seriously,” said Allan Schweyer, a loan amount researcher with business research throng The Conference Board. 

In his first term, Trump used executive power to bar the federal government and government contractors from conducting racially “divisive” and “un-American” diversity training and started a tip line for whistleblowers to turn in their employers. Trump’s Labor Department questioned if diversity initiatives to boost the ranks of Black executives at Microsoft and Wells Fargo violated federal laws barring race discrimination. 

“A lot of what the President-elect wants to do, he can do through executive order. He doesn’t require congressional approval. And it’s pretty far reaching,” Schweyer said. “There’s a lot that the recent administration can do to discourage DEI in the private sector.” 

With multiple levers he can pull, Trump could make sweeping changes. 

In the assignment 2025 playbook, the Heritage Foundation ponder tank wants the incoming administration to strike terms like DEI from “every federal rule, agency regulation, deal, grant, regulation, and piece of legislation that exists.”

Proposals from other activists include directing the fairness Department to investigate programs to boost diversity and abolishing Biden-era rules that bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

Vice President-elect JD Vance, a hawk on DEI, co-sponsored legislation as an Ohio senator to eliminate all federal DEI programs.

“President Trump launched the fight against left-wing racialism in his first term,” said Christopher Rufo, a DEI critic and a elder fellow at the conservative-leaning ponder tank Manhattan Institute. “Now he has the chance to complete it.”

Trump election seen as DEI referendum

After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 forced a historic reckoning with race in America, businesses pledged to make their workforces and their leadership better reflect the communities they serve.

Workers of color are underrepresented at every level of power in corporate America, according to USA TODAY data investigations. One analysis in 2023 found that white men account for 7 in 10 executive officers in the country’s largest companies. About 1 in 7 of these companies had executive teams made up only of white men.

Proponents declare DEI programs assist companies hire and retain diverse talent and make environments that boost innovation. JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and other business leaders have repeatedly stressed that diversity is excellent for business.

But four years after those 2020 promises, the political landscape has shifted. 

While corporate diversity efforts are broadly supported by the American community – especially younger Americans – they face growing scrutiny in the courts and in statehouses across the country as correct-wing foundations, ponder tanks and political operatives push “race neutral” policies. 

The Supreme Court selection in 2023 to ban the consideration of race in higher education only emboldened attacks on workplace programs. 

Two men fought for jobs in a mill50 years later, the country is still divided.

community sentiment has also shifted. customer boycotts that slashed sales forced some brands like Bud Light and Target to retreat from marketing campaigns to the LGBTQ+ throng. Major brands like Ford and Lowe’s have abandoned initiatives and overhauled teams following pressure campaigns from anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck. 

A few companies folded at the mere threat of being called out publicly, according to Starbuck. The keyboard warrior, whose signature social media meme is a grim reaper knocking on the doors of Fortune 500 companies, said he’s preparing a recent list of targets going into the holiday period.

“The battle for opinions, how the community feels about this, we are winning that war and that’s huge. That has a bigger psychological, real-globe result than almost anything else,” Starbuck said.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found American workers’ opinions on the role of DEI in the workplace have become more negative since last year.

About half – 52% – of workers said DEI at work is mostly a excellent thing, down from 56% in February 2023. The distribute of workers who said DEI is a impoverished thing – 21% – is up 5 percentage points since last year.

“A lot of people are exhausted by the concept of corporations being involved in partisan agendas. They just desire to leave into large-box stores and buy a product or a excellent and they don’t desire to be preached at,” said Daniel Cameron, the former Kentucky attorney general who runs 1792 trade, a conservative throng fighting “woke capitalism.” “I ponder that’s ultimately why we are seeing the pendulum swing back.”

Luke Hartig, president of reputational uncertainty firm Gravity Research, said Trump’s decisive win created a narrative “that this election was a referendum on DEI and a range of so-called woke policies.”

For Amber Cabral, a former inclusion strategist at Walmart who put in 12- to 14-hour days to keep up with demand from large corporations for her leadership consulting habit after Floyd’s murder, that narrative had devastating consequences.

For months, mounting attacks on corporate DEI rattled clients who worried they would become the next target. Then Trump’s fiery rhetoric on the campaign trail gave them cold feet and they put off making any commitments until after the election, she said. 

With her tiny Atlanta firm already out nearly $500,000 in contracts, Cabral said she decided to call it quits just hours after Trump’s acceptance talk. Colleagues told her she’s not alone.

“In this election pattern, DEI was weaponized,” Cabral said. “What the work really is and how it can assist us all has been completely obliterated.” 

DEI advocates: Corporations won’t retreat

With many in the private sector braced for turbulence, Joelle Emerson, co-founder and CEO of diversity way and consulting firm Paradigm, has a less pessimistic view. She said the impact of the election and a second Trump presidency remains to be seen. 

Over 60% of corporate executives surveyed by The Conference Board viewed the current political climate for corporate DEI as very or extremely challenging, with most anticipating continued or escalating pushback. 

Even so, fewer than 10% of the organizations planned to scale back their DEI commitments over the next three years. Research shows employees desire diverse and inclusive workplaces, DEI advocates declare, and corporations will also face pressure from progressive forces over the next four years.

“Instead of abandoning diversity, stake and inclusion, I ponder we’ll view companies adjust,” Emerson said. 

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In the face of mounting attacks, business leaders shored up DEI programs to make them less vulnerable to legal challenges and community criticism. 

They have backed away from initiatives like hiring targets that conservatives claim are illegal quotas and from executive bonuses tied to DEI goals.

More than half of elder executives surveyed by the Conference Board said they had adjusted how they refer to DEI over the history year. Another 20% were considering doing so. A growing number have dropped mentions of diversity goals in shareholder reports.

These days, few companies leave out of their way to publicly promote their diversity programs. Major corporations, from Walmart to Salesforce, declined or did not respond to requests to make executives available to discuss their DEI programs.

Microsoft pointed USA TODAY to its recent diversity and inclusion update. “We remain deeply committed to D&I because it is what creates transformational solutions to the most complicated challenges for customers, partners and the globe,” the update reads.

Emerson said corporations may reduce from the hyperpolarized debate over DEI but most are not abandoning the work, which can range from broadening candidate pools to creating mentorship and coaching programs open to all.

“The majority of leaders I talk with recognize that harnessing diversity and fostering inclusion is critical to upcoming business achievement. They desire to be able to cast wider nets, to hire and advance the best people and make cultures where people can do their best work,” she said. 

Franklin Turner who, as co-chair of the government contracts and global trade habit with the McCarter & English law firm, represents large corporations preparing to shift from an administration that embraced DEI to one that rejects it.

The Trump White House will boost pressure on companies that depend on federal financing and those companies may make some adjustments to policies or training materials, Turner said, but he does not expect wholesale changes. 

“I don’t view the C-suites at companies – and I work with a lot of them – taking an intentional step back,” Turner said. 

David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the NYU School of Law, said he hopes to view organizations do more than that over the next four years. 

“I am hoping to view more organizations leave on the front foot rather than just the back foot,” Glasgow said. “This work is going to continue. It may require a rebranding. It’s feasible people might require to be careful about how they talk about it. But there is no universe where even the most unfriendly presidency is going to be able to completely eliminate an entire field of work because there are too many people out there who worry about creating organizations that are respectful, that are inclusive and where people have equal chance.”

(The narrative has been updated to remove attribution of a statement reflected in an earlier version.)