Google Scraps DEI Goals - Why has it Followed Meta & Amazon?

Google is scrapping its goals of hiring more employees from underrepresented groups and reviewing its DEI programmes according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal. 

It is not the first American company to do so – Meta, Amazon, McDonald's, Walmart and Ford are among the businesses reported to have backed away from DEI.

This comes after President Donald Trump signed executive orders on 20 and 21 January 2025 aimed at stopping DEI programmes in the US Government and its federal contractors. 

"We're committed to creating a workplace where all our employees can succeed and have equal opportunities," a Google spokesperson told BBC News.

"We've updated our [annual investor report] language to reflect this and, as a federal contractor, our teams are also evaluating changes required following recent court decisions and executive orders on this topic."

The executive orders ending DEI programmes

“Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity”, one executive order is titled. 

“Roughly 60 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, critical and influential institutions of American society… have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) or ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA) that can violate the civil-rights laws of this Nation,” the order reads.

It revokes a variety of laws that promoted diversity and inclusion within the government and orders a plan to be made to deter large organisations from having DEI programmes “that constitute illegal discrimination or preferences”.

A second order, titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing”, says that government DEI plans “demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination”. 

Google’s previous DEI goals

In 2020, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai said that, by 2025, the company aims to have 30% more of its leaders from underrepresented groups.

At the time, more than 70% of the company’s leaders were men and around 96% were white or Asian. 

Google hired its first Head of Diversity in 2005 and implemented unconscious bias training in 2013.

The company’s 2024 Diversity Annual Report says Google implements workplace policies under five guiding principles:

• Care
• Commitment
• Fairness & Consistency
• Transparency
• Accountability

In 2022, Google met its Racial Equity Commitment of increasing leadership representation of Black+, Latinx+, and Native American+ employees by 30%.

Melonie Parker, Chief Diversity Officer at Google, said in the report: “Google’s mission – to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful – requires us to design, create and build for everyone, every day. 

“We do a better job for our users when we keep that mission front and centre.”

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