- Meta is shedding many of its DEI initiatives, BI confirmed.
- The company sent out a memo announcing the changes on Friday.
- Meta’s vice president of human resources said the legal and political landscape in the US was changing.
Meta is rolling back its DEI programs, Business Insider has learned.
The company’s vice president of human resources, Janelle Gale, announced the move on its internal communications platform, Workplace, on Friday, which was seen by BI.
“We will no longer have a team focused on DEI,” Gale wrote in the memo.
“The legal and political landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” she wrote. “The United States Supreme Court has recently issued decisions that signal a shift in how courts will approach DEI.”
She added that the term DEI is “loaded” in part because it is “understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.”
Meta confirmed the changes when contacted by Business Insider.
On Monday, Meta said it is also replacing fact-checkers with community notes on its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Threads.
Meta is the latest company to leave DEI following a backlash, legal challenges and the re-election of Donald Trump as US president.
Read the full note:
Hello everyone,
I wanted to share some changes we are making to our hiring, development and procurement practices. Before we get into the details, there is some important background to lay out:
The legal and political landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing. The United States Supreme Court has recently issued decisions that signal a shift in how courts will approach DEI. It reaffirms longstanding principles that discrimination based on inherent characteristics should not be tolerated or promoted. The term “DEI” has also become loaded, in part because it is understood by some to be a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others.
At Meta, we have a principle of serving everyone. This can be achieved through diverse cognitive teams, with differences in knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. Such teams are better at innovating, solving complex problems and identifying new opportunities that ultimately help us realize our ambition to build products that serve everyone. Furthermore, we have always believed that no one should be given – or denied – opportunities because of protected characteristics, and that has not changed.
Given the changing legal and political landscape, we are making the following changes:
- With hiring, we will continue to recruit candidates from diverse backgrounds, but we will stop using the Diverse Slate Approach. This practice has always been the subject of public debate and is currently being challenged. We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams of world-class people from all kinds of backgrounds to build products that work for everyone.
- We have previously completed representation targets for women and ethnic minorities. Targeting can create the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender. Although this has never been our practice, we want to eliminate any impression of it.
- We are wrapping up our supplier diversity efforts within our broader supplier strategy. This effort focused on resources from businesses with different ownership; going forward, we will focus our efforts on supporting the small and medium-sized businesses that power most of our economy. Opportunities will continue to be available to all eligible suppliers, including those who were part of the supplier diversity program.
- Instead of equity and inclusion training programs, we will build programs that focus on how to implement fair and sustainable practices that mitigate bias for everyone, regardless of your background.
- We will no longer have a team focused on DEI. Maxine Williams is taking on a new role at Meta, with a focus on accessibility and engagement.
What remains the same are the principles we have used to guide our people practices:
- We serve everyone. We are committed to making our products accessible, useful and universally impactful for everyone.
- We build the best teams with the most talented people. This means sourcing people from a variety of candidate pools, but never making hiring decisions based on protected characteristics (eg race, gender, etc.). We will always value people as individuals.
- We drive consistency in employment practices to ensure fairness and objectivity for all. We do not provide preferential treatment, additional opportunities, or undue credit to anyone based on protected characteristics, nor will we devalue impact based on these characteristics.
- We build connections and community. We support our communities of employees, the people who use our products and those in the communities where we operate. Our Employee Community Groups (ERGs) continue to be open to everyone.
Meta has the privilege of serving billions of people every day. It is important to us that our products are accessible to all and useful in promoting economic growth and opportunity around the world. We remain focused on serving everyone and building a multi-talented, industry-leading workforce from all walks of life.
Do you work at Meta? Contact reporters from a non-work email and device at jmann@businessinsider.com; sjackson@businessinsider.com; and pdixit@businessinsider.com.
