State of the Union on DEI as of April 2025
A continuing question on everyone’s minds: how are company approaches to diversity and inclusion evolving in real-time amid the Trump administration’s war on DEI?
By the numbers. A few timely studies in recent weeks have been largely in agreement – changes are clearly underway, but by no means a majority of companies and by no means a complete elimination of DEI activities.
HR Policy’s survey found about half (53%) of CHROs do not plan to make any changes in 2025, while 27% said they would contract DEI initiatives in some way.
Of those 27%, the most common targets for reduction/elimination were public quantitative goals (64%), DEI metrics tied to pay (53%), and outside culture surveys (51%).
Additionally, 59% are changing the name (and another 28% unsure).
Similarly, the Society’s April survey found that 37% of respondents planned to make changes based on the anti-DEI Executive Orders.
Of those, the most common targets were changing the name (97%), modifying language in internal comms (83%), and public DEI disclosures (77%).
Paradigm’s study found only 38% of companies that currently have representation goals will stop (50% for the largest employers).
However, most of those companies WILL change how they communicate; 77% will stop sharing internally and 92% will stop sharing externally.
35% will stop setting diversity supplier goals (63% for large employers).
Meanwhile, the global response is quite different, according to a March survey by the Institute of Directors; of 605 UK-based members only 11% expected to scale down DEI in the near future.
DEI Tracker. HR Brew is maintaining a database of public employer responses to the debate on DEI. It notes which companies have announced changes to DEI language, the DEI team, ERGs, external benchmarking, representation goals and public DEI references.
What’s ahead. We are still waiting for the “May report” from agencies with a strategy for attacking “illegal DEI” in companies as well as lists of the most egregious offenders. Meanwhile, the EEOC has broken its silence on collecting EEO-1 data for 2024. The platform will open on May 20 for a month, and will require the usual race and gender information, with one exception – no ability to report employees’ gender as non-binary.
Ani Huang
Senior Executive Vice President, Chief Content Officer, HR Policy Association
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