Small-business owners committed to diversity, equality, and inclusion objectives may be forgiven for wondering if they’ll eventually fall prey to pressure campaigns that have led far larger companies to drop similar hiring and promotion policies. The risk of attracting that unwanted attention has grown after fast-food giant McDonald’s joined the swelling ranks of U.S. corporations dropping their DEI practices, amid surging conservative opposition.
The Golden Arches announced on Monday that it has revised some of the DEI policies it adopted in 2021 and eliminated formal inclusion and diversity criteria in staffing and supplier considerations. Instead, the company said it will pursue equality in its hiring, promotion, and partnership decisions in a more fluid manner, “to create an environment where we can all be successful … making McDonald’s a place where everyone feels welcome and included.”
Yet despite the positive, proactive tone of its statement, the chain’s move appears to replicate decisions made by many other major U.S. corporations to abandon DEI programs in the face of rising hostility by conservative groups.
Indeed, the company’s open letter explaining its decision explicitly noted the “shifting legal landscape” created by last June’s Supreme Court decision that struck down affirmative action criteria in university acceptance procedures. Since then, a number of Republican-allied organizations have filed lawsuits based on the high court’s ruling, attacking what they consider similarly “woke” DEI policies adopted by companies.
Amid these court efforts, conservative activist Robby Starbuck has led several successful public pressure campaigns that appear to have influenced decisions by Walmart, Boeing, Ford, Lowe’s, Caterpillar, Harley-Davidson, Ford, and other large companies to abandon their DEI programs. In a post Monday on the social media platform X, Starbuck similarly claimed credit for McDonald’s “ending a number of woke DEI policies.”
“We’ve now changed policy at companies worth well over $2.3 Trillion dollars [sic], with many millions of employees who have better workplace environments as a result,” Starbuck said of his wider effort.
According to its letter, McDonald’s has not entirely abandoned the objectives behind its previous DEI policies, setting itself apart from several businesses Starbuck set his sights on.
Instead, the company said it’s dropping its quantified targets for inclusive hiring, promotion, and business relationships for a default practice of equality.
It also hailed the results of its past diversity policies, which the company credited for helping it attain greater diversity in its management ranks and among suppliers and achieving “gender pay equity at all levels and in every market.”
Still, the global fast-food giant also took the symbolically step of renaming its former DEI unit the “Global Inclusion Team”—a rather ostentatious demonstration of policy revision.
It’s also halting participation in “external surveys”—an apparent reference to the Human Rights Campaign, which collects data on corporate treatment of LGBTQ+ employees. Other big corporations that have scrapped their diversity programs under pressure similarly broke with the group, which is reviled by many conservative detractors.
What does that mean for smaller business owners practicing and hoping to continue pursuing DEI objectives?
Realistically speaking, with the Trump administration set to assume power in two weeks—and Republicans equally hostile to progressive business policies controlling Congress—it seems likely both political and legal anti-DEI campaigns will increase in coming months. And as the number of large corporations caving to that pressure increases, the risk will rise of opponents starting to target smaller businesses as well.
Aware of that, company owners committed to DEI are advised to rework any formal policies and remove overly specific language and quantified staffing quotas that could potentially be legally attacked as discriminatory. From there, entrepreneurs should keep conducting their businesses as they see fit—but be ready to defend their choices should antidiversity campaigns target them.
