Meta DEI programs are being cancelled. Read the note

Meta He told employees on Friday that he plans to end several internal programs designed to boost the company’s recruitment of diverse candidates, a dramatic shift ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.

Janelle Gale, vice president of Meta People, made the announcement on the company’s workplace internal communications forum.

Among the changes, the company’s meta “ends.Various Slate presentation“Considering qualified candidates from underrepresented groups for open roles. The company is discontinuing its diversity provider program and equity and inclusion training programs.”

Gale announced the disbandment of the company’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, team, and said Maxine Williams, Meta’s chief diversity officer, will transition to a new role focused on accessibility and engagement.

Several Meta employees responded to Gale’s post criticizing the new policy.

“When things get tough, if you don’t stand by your principles, they’re not values. They’re hobbies,” said one employee in a comment received from more than 600 colleagues.

DEI’s policy change follows several public policy changes by the social media company this month. Last week, Meta replaced global affairs chief Nick Clegg with company veteran Joel Kaplan, who has long ties to the Republican Party. On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg announced a new speech policy that included ending the company’s third-party fact-checking program.

Axios was first. Report DEI changes in the social media company. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Below is Galle’s full internal memo, obtained by CNBC.

Hello everyone

I wanted to share some changes to our hiring, development, and purchasing practices. Before we get into the details, there is some important background to outline:

The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing. The United States Supreme Court has recently passed decisions that have changed the way courts approach DEI. It reaffirms age-old principles that discrimination based on inherent characteristics should not be tolerated or promoted. The word “DEI” is also charged.

At Meta, we have a principle of serving all. This can be achieved through cognitive diversity groups with differences in knowledge, skills, political views, upbringing, attitudes and experiences. Such teams are better at innovating, solving complex problems and identifying new opportunities, which ultimately help us achieve our ambition to build products that serve everyone. On top of that, we’ve always believed that no one should be given or denied opportunities because of defensive behavior, and that hasn’t changed.

Given the legal and policy landscape, we are making the following changes.

• In hiring, we will continue to offer candidates from diverse backgrounds, but we will no longer use the Diverse Slate Approach. This practice has always been subject to public debate and is currently being challenged. We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and world-class teams from all backgrounds to build products that work for everyone.

• We have already ended the representation goals for women and ethnic minorities. Setting goals creates the impression that decisions are being made based on race or gender. While this has never been our practice, we want to dispel any misconceptions.

• In our extensive supplier strategy, supplier diversity is at the heart of our efforts. This effort focused on acquisitions from various proprietary businesses. Going forward, we will focus our efforts on supporting the small and medium-sized businesses that dominate our economy. Opportunities will continue to be available to all eligible suppliers, including those who are part of the Supplier Diversity Program.

• Instead of equity and inclusion training programs, we build programs that focus on how to implement fair and consistent practices that reduce discrimination for everyone, regardless of their background.

• We will no longer have a team focusing on DEI. Maxine Williams is taking on a new role focused on Meta’s reach and engagement.

What remains the same are the principles we use to guide our people’s practices:

1. We serve all. We are committed to making our products accessible, useful and universally impactful for everyone.
2. We build great teams with the most talented people. This means finding people from diverse candidate pools but never making hiring decisions based on expected characteristics (eg race, gender, etc.). We always evaluate people on an individual basis.
3. We encourage consistency in hiring practices to ensure fairness and objectivity for all. We do not give preferential treatment, extra opportunities or unfair credit to anyone based on expected characteristics. We do not reduce impact based on these characteristics.
4. We build relationships and community. We support our employee community, the people who use our products, and those in the community. Our Labor Community Groups (MRGs) remain open to all.

Meta has the privilege of serving billions of people every day. It is important to us that our products are accessible to all and useful in promoting economic growth and opportunity around the world. We continue to focus on serving everyone and building a multi-talented, industry-leading workforce.

See: Chris Kelly, Facebook’s former chief privacy officer, is returning to the tradition of free speech.