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In the aftermath of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, corporate America faced a racial reckoning. Companies across industries reacted by publicly pledging to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion, launching new task forces, creating new roles, and promising to build workplaces that better reflected the countries they served.<\/p>\n
But in recent months, as political pressure against DEI has intensified, many organizations have quietly scaled back or abandoned those commitments.<\/p>\n
That retreat, according to Dr. Bernice A. King, CEO of The King Center and daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., reveals something fundamental: many companies were never truly committed to DEI.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you retreat that quick, it suggests to me that reveals who you really are,\u201d she said Tuesday at Fortune<\/em>\u2019s 2026 Workplace Innovation Summit in Atlanta during a panel moderated by Fortune<\/em> senior writer Phil Wahba.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cWhen you know who you are, when you know those values, when you live by those values, when you infuse those values in the culture, when the pressure shows up, you don\u2019t retreat.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, King acknowledged that decisions around DEI are often more nuanced than a simple choice between embracing or abandoning the work. For many leaders, the stakes can be substantial.<\/p>\n She pointed to universities that have faced increased scrutiny from the federal government over DEI-related policies. For leaders whose institutions depend on research and public health funding, the pressure has raised difficult questions without clear answers, such as: \u201cHow do I make a decision that I can still move forward and practice what DEI represents, but not have the enormous cost of being caught up in litigation?\u201d<\/p>\n Even amid growing political pressure around DEI, some companies have continued to stand by their commitments\u2014and defend them publicly.<\/p>\n King cited Delta Air Lines as an example of a company that remained vocal about its values despite mounting scrutiny. In its 2025 environmental, social, and governance (ESG) report, Delta said it is \u201cactively valuing diversity,\u201d \u201cboldly pursuing equity,\u201d and \u201cconsciously promoting inclusion,\u201d including through hiring, promotions, and employee support programs.<\/p>\n Costco has taken a similar stance. CEO Ron Vachris has defended the retailer\u2019s efforts to create equal opportunities for employees, even as other companies have pulled back. Last year, Costco shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a proposal calling on the company to evaluate risks tied to DEI practices, with more than 98% of shares reportedly voting against it.<\/p>\n For Jotaka Eaddy, the CEO of Full Circle Strategy\u2014a thought leadership and social impact consulting firm\u2014holding values firm is what ultimately builds trust\u2014regardless of whether stakeholders agree with a company\u2019s position.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cConsistency is very important,\u201d Eaddy said on the Fortune<\/em> panel. \u201cYour consumers, your employees\u2014they may disagree with you, but they will respect your consistency, and I think the volatility that\u2019s happening right now is causing a lot of distrust amongst consumers, employees.\u201d<\/p>\n She also echoed King\u2019s criticism, saying that many organizations treated DEI more like a marketing exercise than a deeply embedded business principle\u2014something she called a \u201cvery dangerous mistake.\u201d That approach, she added, made it easy for companies to backtrack on their commitments.<\/p>\n That inconsistency could prove costly in the battle for talent and consumers, particularly as young workers still believe in company values. A 2025 study by Catalyst and NYU\u2019s School of Law found that 86% of Gen Zers are more likely to stay with an employer that supports DEI, and 61% would never apply to a company that does not support it.<\/p>\n Theresita Richard, the chief people and culture officer at Patagonia, added that sticking to values can take different forms\u2014but ultimately shows up in whether companies embed them into daily behavior.\u00a0<\/p>\n She pointed to Patagonia\u2019s efforts to encourage civic engagement, including initiatives that prompt employees and customers to support nonprofits, engage in local issues, and take action in their communities.<\/p>\n \u201cThat collective power does make a difference,\u201d Richard said. \u201cAnd when people see that, they see that it\u2019s real. It\u2019s not just about, \u2018Let me put out a headline,\u2019 but it\u2019s about what\u2019s actually happening in my day-to-day, because when those things don\u2019t add up, it\u2019s cognitive dissonance.\u201d<\/p>\n And ultimately, King said the key to long-term business success lies in prioritizing compassion, vulnerability, and transparency among its workers and consumers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t be afraid to have courage in the environment and lean in to all of our team members, regardless of what community they are part of because we\u2019re all a part of the corporate family,\u201d King said. \u201cWe have to be able to hear, we have to be able to listen, and we have to be able to show up in a way that shows that we care.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n #Bernice #King #companies #walked #DEI #committed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the aftermath of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, corporate America faced a racial reckoning. Companies across industries reacted by publicly pledging to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion, launching… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3035,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5181,5182,1292,5177,5178,5179,4646,844,5180,4978,2973],"class_list":["post-3034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-bernice","tag-committed","tag-companies","tag-conferences","tag-dei","tag-diversity-and-inclusion","tag-fortune-workplace-innovation","tag-king","tag-patagonia","tag-view-from-the-c-suite","tag-walked"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fintechpulse8.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Costco, Delta, Patagonia: What companies standing by DEI have in common<\/h2>\n