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Front Burner Transcript for January 29, 2025

Host: Jayme Poisson

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DONALD TRUMP: We're going to stop the destructive and divisive Diversity, Equity and Inclusion mandates.

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JAYME POISSON: Hey, I'm Jayme Poisson. So on his very first night back in the Oval Office, U.S. President Donald Trump dealt what one analyst called a “death blow” to diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal government.

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DONALD TRUMP: This is a big deal. Merit. Our country's going to be based on merit again. Can you, can you believe it?

JP: He signed executive orders that upended decades of policy on both DEI and affirmative action, which Trump's administration calls illegal discrimination. This has come as some of the biggest companies in the U.S., from Walmart to McDonald's to Target, have been rolling back their own diversity policies, which have faced growing legal and cultural backlash. So is this the end of DEI? And what could it mean both in the U.S. and beyond, including here in Canada? Today, I'm speaking to Washington Post business reporter Julian Mark about all of this.

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JP: Julian, hi. Thanks so much for coming on to the show.

JULIAN MARK: Hi, thanks for having me.

JP: It's great to have you. So let's start with Trump's executive orders from last week. Can you just briefly explain what they are and how far-reaching the impacts of them could be?

JULIAN MARK: So Trump's executive orders toward diversity, DEI, which stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and affirmative action are very far-reaching. So far-reaching that some of the activists who had been working to dismantle these programs before Trump took office were even surprised by how strong, biting and sweeping they were. The executive orders, there are a few of them, there are several of them, and each tackles sort of a different part. You know, one tackles... pretty much just reverses all of what president Joe Biden implemented in the first days of his presidency in 2021, basically just reversing any sort of what he called an equity agenda. Any type of effort to funnel money towards minority-owned businesses, minority-owned farmers, you know, creating access to resources for minorities and women. And within the federal government, creating pathways for people to join and, you know, succeed in the federal government. So that was one part of it. And then the other part is pretty much cancelling all race and gender-based programs for government contractors and government grantees. So it's unclear exactly how it's going to work, but it sort of nullifies any type of grant or contract or program, you know, that funnels money specifically to, you know, specific races or genders.

JP: Am I right to say that federal workers were also instructed that they have to report any ongoing DEI activities in their departments or face, quote, like, "adverse consequences," right?

JULIAN MARK: Yeah, that's exactly, that's exactly right. Every agency, to my knowledge, received some kind of email saying, if you know about any type of, you know, concealed DEI program, anything that's been renamed to sort of hide it from the Trump administration, you have ten days to tell us and you won't get in trouble. So essentially, if you rat on people you know, then you'll be safe.

JP: Mm-hmm. I did want to ask you about one of the things that Trump rescinded. It was this 1965 affirmative action executive order by President Lyndon B. Johnson to prohibit employment discrimination.

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LYNDON B. JOHNSON: But it is a tribute to America that, once aroused, the courts and the Congress, a president and most of the people, have been the allies of progress. Thus we have seen the high court of the country declare that discrimination based on race was repugnant to the Constitution, and therefore void.

JP: I saw in some of your reporting that in 1985, Ronald Reagan had tried to roll back that affirmative action order, but he ended up dropping that plan because there was so much backlash -- not only from both Republicans and Democrats, but also from corporations. A bunch of Fortune 500 companies at the time even said that they'd keep their programs even if the executive order changed. So tell me more about that. Why were companies so adamant that they wanted to protect affirmative action at the time?

JULIAN MARK: Well, I think it's a couple of reasons. I mean, I think the first reason is, is that they'd already implemented these systems into their businesses. And, you know, it is costly for businesses to just move with what, you know, with what the government wants. And then on the other hand, you know, I think that the companies actually saw a benefit from, you know, opening doors to people that they would not normally see, and to check, you know... to sort of essentially have these audits that sort of help them comply with civil rights laws. I mean, I think, you know, it helped reduce liability that they might be violating these laws, civil rights laws. And then B, I think that they also probably saw a benefit in bringing people in that they normally wouldn't see.

JP: Well, the case that, like, there's a benefit even to their bottom line, that it makes their companies work better, target blind spots better, this kind of stuff, right?

JULIAN MARK: Well that's... you know, that rationale doesn't really show up quite yet. The so-called business case for diversity, you know, doesn't really begin to build until, you know, perhaps the '90s. But I think that there really was, you know, perhaps this sort of idea that sort of underlied it.

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JP: Can you just take me through briefly, or as briefly as you can, kind of the evolution of DEI policies? You mentioned the 1990s, you know, up through the 2000s. Then of course, we saw a big expansion of DEI initiatives in the wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020, right?

JULIAN MARK: Right, exactly. In the '90s, you begin to sort of see the emergence of what we now know as DEI, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and that, you know, that's where companies begin to implement programs like employee resource groups and mentorships and, you know, certain hiring practices that, you know, open gateways to people that they normally wouldn't see. But the underlying rationale starts becoming, well, we believe that this is good for business, that having diverse perspectives will allow us to essentially increase our bottom line. And so I think we definitely see, you know, sort of an expansion of this very forward-looking type of DEI, while also sort of this compliance aspect that, you know, we don't want to get hit with any lawsuits because we don't want to be caught sort of unintentionally discriminating against certain groups. So that goes in place. But then after George Floyd, there was, you know, widespread calls for racial justice in sort of every corner of life. And that included corporations' responsibility to promote racial justice. And that prompted pledges in the billions of dollars from Fortune 500 companies, saying that they would promote racial equity within their companies by diversifying their supplier bases, having very sort of targeted programs, saying, we are going to give this much money to Black-owned businesses, we're going to give this much money to Latino-owned businesses. And so we sort of see this outgrowth of programs aimed at doing this.

JP: Yeah. I wanted to ask you or discuss with you, there has been a lot of cynicism about some of the expansion of DEI efforts that happened after 2020 from different parts of the political spectrum, right? Like I think it is fair to say that a lot of advocates for racial justice have argued that a lot of corporations have ended up just using these initiatives as a lot of window dressing and PR, right? That it became this big business in itself and that the way a lot of companies have gone about it isn't addressing power structures or actually improving outcomes for marginalized populations. Because you also have to hire people who are challenging the status quo and give those hires the power to set the agenda. You can't just tick a box and say that you're improving diversity numbers. And do you think that that's a fair summary of that criticism?

JULIAN MARK: Yeah. I mean, I think that, you know, it really depended on the company. And, you know, there were some companies, I think, that actually had these systems in place, really did sort of take it to heart and were able to build on those systems. There are other companies that I think just, you know, saw the moment, dove in, and... you know, I think that's what you're talking about, a little bit of this window dressing. They threw money at the problem. That money probably didn't go to very useful places. They were able to put out a press release. And then when, you know, the legal landscape got trickier, you know, then it was sort of easy to pare those back. And I also think that, you know, the moment also created some risk for companies that didn't really know what they were doing and wanted to seize on that moment. You know, they threw money at problems, they didn't implement their programs intentionally, and that created liability for them. And some backlash that sort of made them easy targets, probably, after the Supreme Court in June 2023 overturned the affirmative action at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.

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JAYME POISSON: Hi, everybody. Jayme here. I have a favour to ask you. If you wouldn't mind, could you please hit the follow button? It really, really helps us and we'll definitely make it worth your while, because we are going to be all over the upcoming Canadian election and the first hundred days of the Trump presidency. So follow us and don't miss an episode.

JP: You know, as you've mentioned, the landscape has drastically changed. In the past few months, even before Trump came to power, we've seen a ton of Fortune 500 companies in the U.S. roll back or dismantle their diversity programs. We're talking Walmart, McDonald's, Meta, Molson Coors, Boeing and many others.

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REPORTER 1: Walmart says it will also review its funding to Pride events and will end racial equity training programs for staff.

REPORTER 2: Amazon saying in a recent memo: We've been winding down outdated programs and materials.

NEWS PRESENTER: McDonald's now says it will stop specific diversity goals like requiring their suppliers to commit to certain DEI targets. It will also stop participating in surveys that measure corporate diversity.

REPORTER 2: And Meta told employees Friday, given the shifting legal and policy landscape, the company is changing DEI programs, focused on hiring, training and picking suppliers.

JP: We've seen a lot of changes in rhetoric too, especially from a lot of the Silicon Valley heavy hitters like Mark Zuckerberg, who was on Joe Rogan earlier this month, saying that DEI had neutered corporate culture.

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MARK ZUCKERBERG: It's one thing to say we want to be kind of like welcoming and make a good environment for everyone. And I think it's another to basically say that masculinity is bad.

JP: You mentioned the Supreme Court decision as a real turning point here -- the decision from 2023 about Harvard. And just tell me more about that decision and the knock-on effects of that and how it brought us to today.

JULIAN MARK: Well, I just want to start by saying that since sort of that Johnson order, since, you know, Kennedy's order that preceded that, there's always been just a massive tension over affirmative action and, you know, now what we call DEI, just because of the inherent questions that it raises about fairness and, you know, the building blocks of our society. But I think that, especially now, that really did come to the fore, and I think it came out in the Supreme Court's decision that... I mean, essentially, they advanced a race-blind sort of doctrine or a race-blind principle. They in their decision said, you know, we have embarked on this -- and I'm paraphrasing here -- we have embarked on affirmative action for close to 60 years now, and it's time to essentially cut it loose because, you know, we can no longer sort of make an exception to our equal protection laws. And sort of that race-blind logic, even though the Supreme Court's decision was, you know, quite narrow and quite focused on college admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, that decision and its logic was taken by legal activists and sort of advanced into the private sector. And so immediately, just even weeks after the Supreme Court handed down that decision, we see, you know, activists essentially wielding this decision to invalidate programs in the private sector with a great deal of success. Along with that, you had a cultural outrage and cultural activism such as Robby Starbuck, an online influencer.

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ROBBY STARBUCK: Companies need to listen to our movement. We are powerful and growing every single day.

ROBBY STARBUCK: We will not stop until we have eliminated Wokeness in corporate America.

ROBBY STARBUCK: We were able to have frank conversations with Walmart. And as I've said for a long time, I don't ask companies to take on my political views. I am simply advocating for corporate neutrality.

JULIAN MARK: Christopher Rufo, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

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CHRISTOPHER RUFO: To Harvard. Okay. DEI is the de facto highest principle of the university now. That's clear. But your motto for the last, you know, 3-, 400 years has been veritas, truth. And we put them in a dilemma where they had to choose one. You either choose DEI or you choose truth. Which one are you going to sacrifice?

JULIAN MARK: Essentially using their platforms to rail against DEI, saying that it's, you know, having a corrosive effect on American institutions and that it's unfair, sort of creating pressure on that side. So I think what we're seeing, you know, particularly with Walmart and McDonald's, we see sort of this double effect we have of the real sort of force of the law behind them. And then we also see these public pressure campaigns forcing these companies to sort of come out and say, fine, you know, we've changed some of our programs and we will, you know, perhaps drop others, you know, because you're calling for us to.

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JP: Maybe just to give an example of the tenor of some of the discourse here. You mentioned Robby Starbuck, also Elon Musk and the talk show host Megyn Kelly. You know, I all saw them suggesting the other week that the damage from the L.A. fires was worse because of DEI initiatives at the department.

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COMMENTATOR 1: Musk also claimed, without any basis, the LAFD prioritized DEI over saving lives and homes. The core of the attack appears to be that Los Angeles' fire chief, Kristin Crowley, is both the first female and first LGBTQ fire chief in L.A.'s history.

MEGYN KELLY: We don't care about your lady parts, and we don't care who you want having access to them. Can you fight fires? Can you make sure there's water in the fire hydrants?

JULIAN MARK: Yeah, I think that... You know, we actually... I first saw this argument in, it must have been early 2023, during the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. A lot of Republican officials got on television and said Silicon Valley Bank failed because of its DEI and ESG -- which stands for Environmental, Social and Governance [JP: Yeah.] investing. They were too focused...

JP: I remember this, yeah.

JULIAN MARK: They were too focused on DEI and ESG to actually, you know, run a bank. So that's why it collapsed. And we see this sort of time and time again, the collapse of the Baltimore Bridge.

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COMMENTATOR 2: A Republican congressional candidate in Florida tweeted that "DEI did this". And a right-wing blue check account that's been boosted by Elon Musk in the past just blew straight past the dog whistling, tweeting to its 276,000 followers, quote, "Baltimore's DEI mayor." The post included a clip of Baltimore's Black mayor, Brandon Scott.

JULIAN MARK: I forget some others. And now the L.A. fires. The fire department was too focused on DEI instead of training, you know, a good, you know, fire department. And, you know, there's also sort of a deeper aspect to this. And I think this really came out explicitly during the ouster of Harvard president Claudine Gay around this time last year, where, you know, you have prominent Republican officials, including Vice President J.D. Vance, who was a senator at the time, saying, oh, Claudine Gay is a DEI hire, and, you know, we're not hiring the best and the brightest to run our institutions. So I think that there is a little strain of that, too. You know, because we're focused on DEI, we're not bringing the best into our institutions and therefore weakening them.

JP: And of course, often, as is the case with this stuff, we're really not seeing a lot of evidence, right? Like the L.A. Fire Department example, like there's no evidence that they de-emphasized safety or effectiveness in favour of, you know, so-called wokeness. When you look at the public polling on this, though, it's generally more in favour of DEI than against it. For example, a Washington Post poll from last June found 6 in 10 Americans said initiatives were a good thing. In a Pew poll last November, 52% were in favour versus 21% against, although that's slightly more negative than a year before. A YouGov poll out last week found 48% favourable views of DEI versus 29% unfavourable. Is the political tenor of this conversation in line with what regular people think, you think?

JULIAN MARK: Well, you know, honestly, I think it's a very hard thing to measure. And, you know, polling can, you know, sort of point in one direction. And, you know, it could perhaps give you a snapshot. But I think it's just, you know, the way you sort of frame the question. I think that everybody is in favour of, you know, getting more opportunity and having programs that allow people to have more opportunity, which is what DEI is. I think it's often a very misconstrued topic. I mean, proponents of DEI, you know, often remind me that DEI is not about giving somebody something and taking away from somebody else. It really is, you know, they're programs that say, oh, we're going to look here for folks instead of just here. It's very much about expanding sort of your sightlines into who you bring into the fold. But I think that when you get to some of the trainings that came out in the wake of the Floyd protests, you know, some of the more poorly conducted trainings, you sort of see them doing similar things that I don't think anybody would be in favour of, which is saying things like, 'Be less white,' or, 'All white people are racist.' You know, you kind of see-- you kind of have this strain, and I think that created a lot of backlash to DEI and sort of gave DEI a bad name. So I think that, you know, it depends on what you mean by DEI, if we're talking about who favours it, because I think it, you know, encompasses a very sort of broad thing. So I think it's a very hard, difficult thing to capture.

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JP: Julian, broadly, when you take all of this together -- Trump's executive orders, the Supreme Court decision, the retreat of corporations from DEI programs, the activism and culture component of all of this -- how do you think it's likely to reshape American life?

JULIAN MARK: The jury is still out on that. I mean, you have to think that with many of these programs, especially the government programs that gave more opportunities to certain minority groups and women, I think, you know, the fact that that money has been, um, is now in total suspension, the fact that you're having the administration say, okay, we're going to draw up lists of companies, universities, non-profits, medical associations and investigate them, you're looking at a really large swath of American life. I mean, you're looking at education, you're looking at the medical profession, and of course, you're looking at companies that, you know, deal directly with consumers. So I think we're talking about quite a large chunk of society. And I think the question now is, how will this be executed? How successfully will this be executed? So I think that there are a lot of questions there.

JP: Just as a final question for you, I wonder if you have some sense of the kind of impacts this is likely to have beyond American borders. So I'm thinking about Canada in particular. The likely winner of our next election, Conservative Pierre Poilievre, often speaks disparagingly about the so-called woke ideology, as do people in his party. So this is a growing sentiment in Canada too, and we are talking about some of the biggest multinational companies in the world. Is it likely that all of these shifts in the U.S. are going to have an impact on how these companies and institutions are behaving beyond the U.S.? Or, for example, the kinds of policies that Canadian companies who do business in the U.S. can have?

JULIAN MARK: Well, I think, you know, in terms of the multinationals, I think it, you know, it remains to be seen, although large multinational corporations, you know, do have impacts beyond U.S. borders. And I think that even sort of like the, you know, the symbol of a company like McDonald's, which I think can be seen around the world as representing American enterprise, American freedom, certainly has that effect on people. And if you have companies that are drawing back and saying, you know, we're going to de-prioritize, you know, some kind of racial equity agenda and we're going to de-prioritize whether or not we engage in some type of diversity effort, I think that could, you know, absolutely have an effect, and perhaps, you know, it may allow companies that are not as large as McDonald's to say, oh, well, you know, if McDonald's isn't doing it, if Walmart isn't doing it, if Meta isn't doing it, then maybe we don't have to as well.

JP: Okay. Julian, that was great. Thank you so much for making the time.

JULIAN MARK: No problem. Thank you.

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JP: All right. That is all for today. I'm Jayme Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow.

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The end of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion? - Transcript

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