Was 2024 the year DEI fell apart?

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion “DEI” policies faced increased scrutiny in 2024, leading at least a dozen major US companies and hundreds of universities to roll back these commitments, once seen as innocuous.

“I think it was inevitable,” said conservative activist Robby Starbuck Fox News Digital about the push back to DEI this year after its surge in popularity four years ago.

“In 2020, a lot of leaders bought into this whole idea and concept of DEI because they just didn’t want to be seen as racist,” he said. “A lot of them had no idea or understanding of what it was going to be.”

DEI, which often involves prioritizing race, gender or sexuality in hiring, training and programming, has been criticized by conservatives as divisive and discriminatory. Supporters of DEI say these efforts address racial disparities and provide support to groups that have historically been marginalized.

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Large companies that dropped DEI in 2024

The private sector’s move away from DEI this year comes as companies have faced increasing pressure from Starbuck and other conservatives to reconsider those policies.

American Airlines became the latest U.S. company to agree to abandon its diversity hiring practices this month after facing a legal complaint from conservative watchdog America First Legal.

“The airline recognized that recruiting and hiring based on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) violates federal and equal employment opportunity laws,” the AFL said in a statement.

Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer and private employer, confirmed in November that it would also step away from DEI. These changes included removing sexual and transgender products from third-party merchants that were inappropriately marketed to children from their online marketplace and ending their participation in the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index.

In a statement to FOX Business, Walmart said it was “willing to change with our employees and customers who represent all of America.”

“We’ve been on a journey and know we’re not perfect, but every decision comes from a place where we want to foster a sense of belonging, open doors to opportunity for all our employees, customers and suppliers and be a Walmart for everyone,” the company said.

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At least ten other American companies – Ford, Lowe’sBoeing, Caterpillar, Harley-Davidson, Polaris, John Deere, Tractor Supply Company, Jack Daniel’s and Molson Coors—also reportedly rolled back DEI initiatives earlier this year.

Other companies with a large corporate presence in the United States, such as Nissan and Toyota, also agreed to disband a number of their DEI practices by the end of 2024.

Starbuck, who campaigned against “woke” policies at Walmart and several other companies, believes that people privately began to get upset with DEI about two years ago. But by 2024, it became more socially acceptable for people to say out loud that these policies were “toxic,” he said.

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“This was the year that people got permission socially, in many ways, to just talk about it and admit it. For every company that goes down, more and more people feel comfortable admitting that they have a problem with the.” Starbuck told Fox News Digital.

Universities move away from DEI amid mounting pressure

DEI has also been out the door at universities across the United States.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which has tracked higher education’s “dismantling of DEI,“215 college campuses across 32 states have made changes to their DEI policies.

Public universities in several states closed their DEI offices after lawmakers passed or introduced legislation prohibiting state funding of DEI.

After the Florida Board of Regents permanently banned taxpayer dollars used to fund DEI programs in state schools in January, the University of Florida fired all employees in DEI positions to comply with the new rules.

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University of Texas at Austin also closed its DEI offices to comply with a new state law banning DEI offices at public universities. The anti-DEI law, signed by Governor Abbott in 2023, also restricts universities from using diversity statements in hiring practices and training.

Alabama, Iowa and Utah joined Texas and Florida in banning DEI offices at public universities this year, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Kansas and Idaho also passed laws prohibiting public institutions from requiring diversity statements in hiring or admissions decisions.

Boise State University became one of the latest schools to close its equity centers on November 29followed by the University of Michigan, which dismantled DEI statements as part of its faculty hiring, promotion and tenure requirements in December.

DEI still has a strong presence in most of America’s leading companies

While several top companies withdrew from DEI by 2024, the majority of the nation’s largest companies still maintain some form of commitment to the practice, according to a recent report from the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.

Heritage looked at corporate statements, annual reports and other publicly available documents from all Fortune 500 companies and found that 485 of the top 500 companies continue to maintain DEI priorities.

British carmaker Jaguar was one company that notably doubled down after facing criticism, taking their brand in a “woke” new direction with its recent rebranding.

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Starbuck knows his fight against “woke” ideology in America’s top companies is not over.

Some companies will “do the right thing” by disbanding DEI, he predicted, while others will try to sneak it back in under other names.

“We have some work left to do to institutionally get rid of the wiring and the foundation here because a lot of these things are deeply embedded in our society in ways that most people don’t even understand,” he said.

“The DEI is a wounded animal, so expect desperate maneuvers from the people who pushed it,” he continued. “But that means we’re at the beginning of its demise.”

Fox News’ Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.