With President Donald Trump’s administration terminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs across the country, several major companies have begun shutting down their own DEI programs.
A few days after taking office, President Trump signed an executive order that will ensure “federal hiring, promotions, and performance reviews will reward individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work and not, under any circumstances, DEI-related factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements.”
Ultimately, the order revokes Executive Order 11246’s contracting criteria mandating affirmative action and bars the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs from pushing contractors to balance their workforce based on race, sex, gender identity, sexual preference, or religion.
Due to the order, public universities, government offices, and other entities are forgoing DEI training, hiring practices, and offices. States across the country are also drafting their own specific anti-DEI bills.
In Iowa, the education-funding bill Senate File 2435 bans public institutions from having DEI offices and hiring or assigning anyone “to perform duties” of a DEI office.
However, Trump’s new order isn’t only affecting public universities and government agencies but companies as well.
Now, multiple corporations have started rolling back their DEI programs due to backlash and criticism — Google, Target, McDonald’s, and Meta are only some of those companies.
Despite the backlash, other companies, such as Apple and Costco, are keeping their DEI programs.
Costco is known for being a large membership-only big-box warehouse club retail store that was founded in 1983 with almost 900 locations worldwide and one location at 2900 Heartland Dr in Coralville.
According to Forbes, during Costco’s Annual Meeting of Shareholders on Jan. 23, preliminary results showed that over 98 percent of its shareholders voted down the National Center for Public Policy Research’s proxy proposal that the company should conduct an evaluation and report on the company’s risks of maintaining its current DEI policies.
“We have always been purposefully non-political, and a welcoming workforce has been integral to the company’s culture and values since its founding,” Costco Board Chairman Hamilton E. James said during the meeting.
According to meeting documents, Costco will continue to back its commitment to “Take Care of Our Employees.” This includes promoting diversity, equity and inclusion and creating an inclusive and respectful workplace.
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The documents also stated, “We demonstrate leadership commitment to equity through consistent communication, employee development, and education, support of diversity and inclusion initiatives within the organization, community involvement, and supplier inclusion.”
Management at the Coralville Costco declined to comment on its DEI programs and initiatives.
Coralville Costco customers stand behind the company’s efforts to continue DEI throughout stores nationwide.
Costco customer Kristi Petersen said it’s important for companies to have strong DEI initiatives; however, she has not noticed prevalent efforts.
“I think [DEI] is a good idea and that they’re trying to implement it,” Petersen said.
Petersen shared that she hopes to see more diversity and inclusion among the employees and customers as Costco continues to implement DEI.
“I think Costco can better share its DEI efforts with customers by doing more advertising and hiring workers that represent those values,” Petersen said.
Another Costco customer, Missy Newman, emphasized the importance of DEI initiatives for companies, particularly for customer treatment and accessibility.
“If you have a customer that’s going to be treated differently based on their race, sexual orientation, or disability, how are they going to be able to go ahead and have equal rights to shop?” Newman said.
Newman believes Costco does not need to actively advertise its DEI efforts but should take customer or worker complaints seriously and address any issues of mistreatment. Overall, Newman said she has had good experiences at Costco and sees no issue with the company keeping its DEI programs.
“I’ve been shopping at Costco for years, and I appreciate how they’re continuing to support their workers,” Newman said. “I’ve had nothing but positive experiences, so this adds to it.”