Warner Bros. launched in 2023. Discovery are ‘Diversity Digest’, a quarterly update on the Dei efforts of the company. The first episode emphasized the Latino display in “Blue Beetle” and home renovation show “Rico to the Rescue”.
But after regular updates in 2024, De Digest stopped after President Trump’s election. Last week the function was removed from the Dei page of the company, together with the commitments of WBD to equity and diversity range, while the company limited its focus to ‘inclusion’. The move came when Trump tried to eradicate the federal level programs and endangered civilian and criminal investigations from private companies. Last month, the Federal Communications Commission opened a study into Comcast, the parent of NBCUIVERSAL and MSNBC – for the possibility to pursue ‘hurtful forms of discrimination’ under the banner of Dei.
“Bullying ensures that many companies are reassessed again,” says Vernā Myers, former head of inclusion at Netflix. “Most smart companies just try to find out how far this goes. They try to stay out of sight. ”
For his part, a Comcast spokesperson said that the company will collaborate with the FCC to answer and add their questions: “Our company has been built on a basis of integrity and respect for all our employees and customers for decades.”
But the Comcast experience is not that another media congen glomates want to repeat. Among the companies that change their approach to Dei, the Walt Disney Co., who recently announced that it put an end to ‘Reimagine Tomorrow’, an initiative that was intended to promote stories from under -represented communities. And it’s not alone. Amazon and, last week, Paramount and WBD ran back programs that dei have embedded in recruitment and promotional practices.
Disney played a major role in the cultural wars, so the decision was especially exciting for conservatives. America First Legal, which has made countless efforts to challenge the policy of the Corporate dei policy, greeted the move like a great victory.
“Disney has finally been withdrawn after years of treating people differently based on characteristics such as race and sex,” says Will Scolinos, counsel of the organization.
It was difficult for supporters of dei policy to say whether Disney really reversed his efforts or just tried to lie low. Anyway, it is clear that the political climate has shifted.
With the recent NAACP awards, the crowd still staggered from Trump’s victory. Kamala Harris came by to offer encouragement and said: “This chapter will not only be written by the one who occupies the Oval Office. The American story will be written by you, written by us – by We The People. ‘
In the Pasadena Civic Auditorium where the award ceremony was held, a sense of determination was tempered with fear that the entertainment industry will be going to political pressure.
“Now it’s like:” What are we going to do? “” Laverne Cox, the star of “Orange is the New Black.” “Our representatives have actually told us and show us that they work to enrich themselves and companies, and they can give an F about us.”
For now, Trump is in charge and exerts his power and influence. In the light of federal probes and potential fines, experts believe that the entertainment industry will continue to instruct explicit efforts to diversify its workforce in favor of vagabasty goals to promote inclusivity.
“If companies say they ensure that everyone has an even playing field, that’s probably ok because the law of the country is that you cannot discriminate,” says Jared Slater, a partner at Erin Cohen & Jessup, specialized in labor law. “If they talk about having a certain percentage of minority talent working on films or in their executive ranks, they will have problems.”
Some initiatives are imposed by trade union contracts, such as the development programs for television director, which were protected by the Directors Guild of America.
But other efforts can be fleeting. Even before Trump returned power, various high-profile dei managers left studios in 2023. The inclusionorer, a contractual tool that makes top talent possible to guarantee a greater diversity in productions, never pulled much buy-in. Only a handful of creatives, such as Michael B. Jordan and Brie Larson, called on the determination. Some fear that Dei’s trend will accelerate now that Trump has made it a dirty word.
“There will be a lot of self -censorship,” Joslyn Barnes, a producer and writer about “Nickel Boys.” “We see that already – people are going to kiss the ring, so to speak.”
Others are convinced that companies will continue to acknowledge that diversity and inclusion in their long -term interests are.
“It is almost impossible for entertainment companies to withdraw holistic from the work of diversity, equity and inclusion,” says Myers. “There is no way you are going to compete without creating the kind of authentic programming where people feel reflected.”
Stacy Smith of USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative agrees and say that companies have bigger problems than the chaos in Washington: “It is the audience that the C-suite should fear the most.”
Jenny Maas and Michael Schneider have contributed to this report.