It’s a tiny word, an acronym to be precise, but few topics have been as explosive or divisive as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in Donald Trump’s America.

In an election campaign where Trump made race, gender and ‘wokeism’ central issues, promising to rollback DEI initiatives and scoffing at Kamala Harris as a ‘DEI candidate’, no surprises that vast swathes of corporate America has quickly fallen into line with its own announcements.

The most recent to join the party is Meta, the parent company for Facebook and Instagram. Days after scrapping its third-party fact-checking programme, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it was junking its DEI programme. Meta, reports AP, will no longer have a team focused on diversity and inclusion and will instead “focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background.”

Meta joins a slew of companies including Amazon, Walmart, Boeing, Ford and McDonalds that have announced DEI rollbacks.

The slide back began with the 2023 US Supreme Court—packed with Trump’s handpicked conservative judges during his first presidency—ruling that race-based affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional. This made it easier for some corporates to do away with DEI policies ostensibly to keep up with a changing legal and political landscape.

But, says an India-based DEI consultant for an American firm who asked not to be named, there........

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