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After the murder of George Floyd in 2020, many companies turned to diversity initiatives that they later abandoned in the wake of the second Trump administration. D. Caleb Smith, assistant professor of history at è����˶���Ƶ College, spoke to The Guardian to explain why. 

Federal action to address discrimination in the workforce stretches back to at least Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and one New Deal policy in particular: the 1935 Labor Relations Act. If a company engaged in unfair labor practices, employees were “entitled to affirmative action as a remedy to make the employee whole,” Smith said. Essentially, the provision was a general remedy to employment discrimination.

However, the programs, which grew to include initiatives from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, were never intended to radically change the workplace in the first place – they aimed to appease workers and dampen discontent. What has happened since 2020 is a reversal rooted in the policies the U.S. created decades ago, when it cast aside the goal of addressing a legacy of discrimination for the vague idea of diversity.

Within days of taking office for the second time, Donald Trump signed an that directed the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to stop “promoting diversity” and holding contractors responsible for “affirmative action.” To Smith, the administration’s early actions amount to “a blatant effort in order to not only uphold the white power structure but to remove any government responsibility to uphold the rights of individuals of color, specifically Black people.”

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