Changes to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts aren’t just the main HR trend of 2025 — they’re the main trend across the board. Summer 2024 gave the business world a glimpse of how fears around compliance could inform DEI strategy.
Tugs of war through shareholder proposals continued through early 2025. Fresh off the inauguration and in the days following, President Donald Trump threw gasoline on the fire with at least five executive orders pertaining to identity and equity at work, in both the public and private sectors.
As the landscape evolves, where does that climate leave private employers regarding DEI?
A case study may exist in John Deere
Last July, tractor company John Deere announced it would no longer participate in “external social or cultural awareness parades, festivals, or events,” and that mandatory training materials would go through audits to “ensure the absence of socially motivated messages,” among other changes.
Our customers’ trust and confidence in us are of the utmost importance to everyone at John Deere. We fully intend to earn it every day and in every way we can. pic.twitter.com/8BgyPyQJQo
— John Deere (@JohnDeere) July 16, 2024
Business resource groups would focus on talent development and John Deere was still committed to a diverse workforce, the statement said.
Still, in the absence of a DEI framework, the question remained as to how John Deere would proceed with its workplace culture and talent strategy. Shareholder Amalgamated Bank raised such concerns through advocacy group As You Sow, which Deere & Co. sought to dismiss with a “no-action request.”
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ruled against the no-action request.
Originally, Deere shot down the proposal, stating that conservative think tank National Legal and Policy Center had issued a similar request to outline DEI programming and policies. NLPC asked Deere to “produce a report on hiring statistics across race and gender” back in September 2024.
“We are unable to concur in your view that the Company may exclude the Proposal,” the SEC stated on Jan 3. “In our view, the Proposal does not substantially duplicate the proposal submitted by the National Legal and Policy Center.”
This proposal, instead, asked the company “to report publicly on the effectiveness of [Deere’s] efforts to create a meritocratic workplace where no one is excluded from contributing to the Company’s success because of an immutable characteristic, such as gender, race or ethnicity.” This request was not the same as that of NLPC, the SEC ruled.
Meredith Benton, founder of Whistle Stop Capital and As You Sow’s workplace equity program manager, spoke to HR Dive about working with companies over the years — including some that made headlines last summer for changes to their DEI strategies.
Speaking about the proposal filed on behalf of Amalgamated Bank, Benton said, “It was catalyzed by the announcement they made over the summer where it was really unclear what genre of changes they were making.”
“Deere now, hopefully, will lean towards communicating much more clearly than it has” regarding the efficacy of its programs and “outcome statistics related to those initiatives,” she said.
Founded in 1992, As You Sow has been inquiring about corporate social responsibility long before the rush to center DEI following the murder of George Floyd. Separately, Benton explained how her team has sent letters to hundreds of companies regarding their DEI practices in the interest of shareholders — pre-2020.
What employers can learn
Announcing an end to DEI at one’s company can come with negative consequences. While a lean toward perceived progressive values may inspire consumer rage (think Bud Light), so may a lean toward perceived conservatism.
Polling from the Human Rights Campaign early in the rollback wave indicated that LGBTQ+ people would leave or boycott businesses that thumbed their nose at DEI.
In the case of tractors specifically, the National Black Farmers Association called on Tractor Supply CEO Hal Lawton to step down from his role following the company’s DEI turnaround. One lesson learned, per marketing and business experts, is that DEI rollbacks have unintended consequences when one’s consumer base is much more diverse than expected.
And now, the Black community is calling for a mass boycott of Target over changes to the retailer’s DEI strategy — much to the chagrin of Black business-owners and a prominent influencer and chef Tabitha Brown, who has a deal with the company.
Defining DEI will be crucial in 2025
While annual meeting conversations about diversity have only recently made their way into the spotlight, shareholder proposals have long been a DEI battleground.
“We’ve only ever been working on it from a shareholder perspective — from a financial, pecuniary standpoint,” As You Sow CEO Andy Behar said.
“You know, now we hear that the Los Angeles fires were ‘caused’ by DEI. The fact that our military is not lethal enough was ‘caused’ by DEI. What are we talking about here?” Behar said.
Two experts in the field previously told HR Dive that defining DEI will be crucial this year: one, a COO at a consulting firm, spoke to how the three-letter acronym has become a boogeyman.
In fact, she said, the vagueness that surrounds the term makes it easy for detractors to leverage the fear around it.
“A robust workforce is going to bring greater voices to the table. That’s going to make a corporate culture that attracts the best and the brightest,” Behar said.
In this landscape, companies have to navigate what Benton called an “actively misrepresented concept of DEI.”
What happens now, in the Trump era
The fight over DEI was gearing up prior to Trump’s executive orders. McDonald’s started the year hot with a statement in favor of “global inclusion” over DEI.
In response to anti-DEI proposals, Apple reaffirmed that its compliance practices — including those around hiring — were sound in a January SEC filing.
Meta also changed course on DEI this year. (Notably, data recently indicated that Meta employees were split on the decision: 43% agreed, 45% disagreed and 12% were unsure.)
And then Trump issued executive orders, including those with implications for the private sector. But even so, a key player like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon welcomed challenges from anti-DEI activists during a conversation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Still, attorneys general of nineteen states sent a letter putting pressure on Costco as recently as Jan. 27. If the tone was not already set prior to Inauguration Day, the orders from the executive branch and across red states reemphasized the president’s view.
So, with new compliance concerns, mounting shareholder drama and irritated consumers, where does this leave the rest of employers in the private-sector landscape?
On Friday, SHRM held a briefing wherein Emily Dickens, the organization’s chief of staff, head of government affairs and corporate secretary, encouraged companies to not abandon their DEI efforts. Now is the time to reassess and evaluate DEI programming and policies to ensure they are compliant, she said.
Meanwhile, Benton, with her bird’s eye view of corporate governance, said, “We will continue to see significant shifts in the way companies speak about the work.”
But, she added, “I don’t think we’re going to see very substantive changes in internal policies — partly because these are companies are planning to be in business more than four years.”
Moreover, she said, “If they don’t keep strong internal practices, they would risk creating a liability within the Trump administration that could then be brought against them when we’re in the next cycle.”
In her experience as someone who works with corporations, Benton said she hasn’t observed “a broad American upswell against the concept of inclusion. That is a very American ideal: To have opportunity available to all.”
