Disney Becomes Latest Company To Scale Back DEI Initiatives During Trump Era

The Walt Disney Company is revamping its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs to align more closely with business outcomes as corporations adjust to President Donald Trump’s second term, Axios reported Tuesday.

Disney will replace its “Diversity & Inclusion” performance factor with a new “Talent Strategy” metric that prioritizes business success while still maintaining some DEI concepts, Chief Human Resources Officer Sonia Coleman announced in a company-wide memo, according to the outlet. The company is also discontinuing its “Reimagine Tomorrow” initiative, which emphasizes “diverse representation” in Disney’s media projects.

“Our primary mission needs to be to entertain, and then through our entertainment to continue to have a positive impact on the world. I’m very serious about that,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said the company’s annual shareholders meeting in 2023, the outlet reported. “It should not be agenda-driven, it should be entertainment-driven”

The “Reimagine Tomorrow” initiative promised that 50% of regular and recurring characters across Disney’s intellectual properties would come from “underrepresented groups.” The program was dropped from the DEI section of the company’s 2024 SEC 10-K report.

Disney will also relocate and revise content advisories that previously appeared before certain older titles on Disney+. Warnings about “negative depictions and/or mistreatment of peoples or cultures” that auto-played before films like “Dumbo” and “Peter Pan” will be moved to the details section of each title, with shortened language stating, “This program is presented as originally created and may contain stereotypes or negative depictions,” sources told the outlet.

The strategic shift appears to be working with some audiences. Disney’s reputation among Republican voters improved significantly in 2024 compared to 2023, according to an Axios Harris 100 brand reputation poll. The company also led North American box office revenue in 2024 with family-friendly releases including “Inside Out 2” and “Moana 2.”

Disney previously lost favor with Republicans in 2022 after the company criticized Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Bill, which prohibited the discussion of transgender or sexual orientation topics for students in kindergarten through third grade. Iger returned as CEO the same year, ousting former chief executive Bob Chapek, who initiated the spat with Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The changes come as major corporations face increased scrutiny of their DEI practices after Trump ordered an end to such programs in the federal government and for its contractors. Companies including Meta, Google and John Deere have scaled back their initiatives, while others, like Apple and Costco, have maintained their programs.