More than a dozen attorneys general across the U.S. signed a letter to Walmart CEO Doug McMillon. They urged him to reconsider his company’s rollbacks of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, commonly called DEI.
“In particular, we are concerned that Walmart’s decision to phase out supplier diversity programs, close down the Center for Racial Equality and equity training for staff, and remove the words ‘diversity’ and ‘DEI’ from company documents and employee titles risks undermining important social progress and anti-discrimination efforts,” the letter said.
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Walmart is the world’s largest retailer. It’s among multiple companies that publicly announced either the rollback or halting of DEI initiatives following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to end affirmative action at colleges in 2023. McDonald’s, Harley-Davidson, Meta, Amazon and Lowe’s also joined Walmart in ending their DEI programs.
Walmart’s policy changes included no longer considering race and gender when making decisions about suppliers, ending various diversity programs and removing the words diversity and DEI from documents in favor of landing about belonging.
The attorneys general who signed the letter are from California, Hawaii, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Vermont and Rhode Island.
They insisted that scaling back from DEI is bad for business and that such policies on diversity are critical in preventing discrimination against minorities and other groups. Now, they are calling on Walmart’s CEO to respond and discuss the matter.
Walmart has not yet responded.
