Between January 2023 and May 2025, Fortune 100 companies reduced their use of the term “DEI” by 98%, according to an analysis by Gravity Research.
Within weeks of President Trump’s executive order targeting federal DEI initiatives, major corporations including McDonald’s, Walmart, and Target announced they were ending DEI programs.
Conservatives celebrated as one company after another backed away from the acronym that had dominated (and in many cases terrified) corporate America for years.
That celebration was premature.
The goal is no longer to showcase diversity initiatives. The goal is to make those initiatives invisible and permanent.
DEI is far from dead. According to “inclusion consultant” Lily Zheng, its disguise is now called FAIR: Fairness, Access, Inclusion, and Representation. “It’s not just a communications rebrand,” Zheng recently told Time magazine. “It’s
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