The Anti-DEI Agenda Is Reprogramming America

It would be silly to think, in this time of spectacular fools, that the Donald Trump administration mandate to kill diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs was simply a workplace issue. What’s happening is bigger than that, says Vernā Myers, and it will have implications for years to come. The US government has declared war on American culture.

The removal of DEI efforts doesn’t just impact the workforces at specific companies, it also impacts what those companies produce, their cultural output. Removing diversity programs limits the voices present when decisions are made about features on social media platforms or what TV show to make. But for Myers, a longtime consultant and cultural strategist who served as Netflix’s vice president of inclusion strategy from 2018 to 2023, the administration’s anti-DEI agenda is “not about how DEI is practiced.”

“This is about the principles of equality and inclusion for all,” Myers says. “This is, ‘We are going to take down the structure of values that DEI is associated with, and by doing so we are going to pull back your civil rights.’”

Trump made a target of DEI on day one, signing an executive order to end “radical and wasteful” preferencing in federal agencies. He followed that up with another order aimed squarely at DEI programs in the private sector. His attorney general Pam Bondi has called for investigations into companies that uphold DEI standards.

A federal judge subsequently blocked Trump’s DEI orders, but that hasn’t stopped companies from scaling back on their initiatives. Warner Bros. Discovery changed the title of its DEI program to simply “Inclusion.” Paramount put a stop to several policies. Disney changed the diversity and inclusion factors it used to determine executive compensation. Per a report in Axios, the company also altered some of the content advisory disclaimers that ran before older titles on Disney+.

Companies like Meta, meanwhile, were eager to embrace a corporate culture of “masculine energy,” because it aligns with the Trump administration’s “warrior” ethos. It also preemptively ditched its third-party fact-checking program and paid moderators in favor of a system that is similar to Community Notes on X. The move, coupled with changes to its Community Guidelines, has exposed users across Facebook, Threads, and Instagram to more hate speech and abuse.

In Hollywood, there is a shift happening, a move toward programming geared to Trump’s America. Law-and-order shows are making a comeback (Prime Video’s On Call; A+E’s Ozark Law) as broadcast-style TV slowly reasserts its dominance. Even the first breakout show of the year—Paradise on Hulu—is all about keeping order in a world ripped apart by nuclear warfare and climate disaster. Rolling back the studios’ diversity initiatives will likely only ensure this continues.

Last month, Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr, a Trump loyalist who previously said he would end the agency’s DEI efforts if appointed, opened a probe into NBC parent company Comcast, promising to take action against the telecom giant if it found “any programs that promote invidious forms of DEI.”

“This whole, we want MEI over DEI is laughable,” Myers says. “Who do you actually think is disadvantaged by DEI? It certainly cannot be white men or white people because they are not. If you do a cultural audit, those are the groups that are doing best. The highest percentages are coming from men and white folks.”

In a political climate where Republicans hold power, she says the current temperature is to be expected. “When you’ve been in the majority for a very long time and pretty much your world is at ease, you don’t like when it gets disrupted. You don’t like when it feels uncomfortable. You certainly don’t like when things are pointing at you,” Myers tells me.

Myers left Netflix in 2023. The timing of her departure was, she says, coincidental. That June, several Black studio executives also exited top-level roles. The exodus included LaTondra Newton, chief diversity officer and senior vice president at Disney, Karen Horne, head of DEI efforts at Warner Bros. Discovery, and Jeanell English, executive VP of impact and inclusion at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, among others.

The joint departures sent the rumor mill into overdrive. Almost all of the women oversaw DEI initiatives, and their exits suggested that maybe the entertainment industry—and America at large, some speculated—wasn’t exactly ready to commit to a shared vision of inclusion, both onscreen and off. Corporate power would only allow change to go so far.

Myers says that wasn’t the whole story. “When people start going on about what was happening in Hollywood, somehow they’re not paying attention to the fact that studios were losing money,” she adds. “And often DEI is a cost center.” Myers says all of that talk merged together. Some women were let go in response to DEI rollbacks. Others, like her, were already planning an exit. Still, Myers says, the problem is that DEI is seen as an ancillary resource—necessary only when it benefits the bottom line.

In fulfilling his pledge to “make America great again,” Trump finds no benefit in how DEI points the finger at white power structures that prop up men like him. The remaking of his America demands blind complicity. It requires the kind of stale cultural programming that DEI—the work of giving everyone a voice—stands in opposition to. Thus far, reviews have been mixed.