Was 2024 the year GOD fell?

Diversity, equity and inclusion The “DEI” policies faced increased scrutiny in 2024, leading at least a dozen major American companies and hundreds of universities to cancel these commitments once seen as harmless.

“I thought it was inevitable,” said conservative activist Robby Starbuck Fox News Digital about the push back to DEI this year after its rise in popularity four years ago.

“In 2020, a lot of leaders bought into this whole idea and concept of DEI because they just didn’t want to be seen as racist,” he said. “Many of them had no concept or understanding of what was to be returned.”

DEI, which often involves prioritizing race, gender or sexuality in hiring, training and programming, has been criticized by conservatives as divisive and discriminatory. DEI supporters say these efforts address racial divides and provide support to groups that have historically been marginalized.

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Robby Starbuck spoke with Fox News Digital about his campaign against DEI after many large companies abandoned these commitments in 2024. (Getty Images/Fox News)

Main companies that have left DEI in 2024

The private sector’s move away from DEI this year comes after the companies faced growing pressure from Starbuck’s and other conservatives to review those policies.

American Airlines became the latest US company to agree to abandon its diversity hiring practices this month, after facing a legal complaint from the conservative watchdog organization America First Legal.

“The airline has acknowledged that recruiting and hiring based on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) violates federal and equal employment opportunity laws,” the AFL said in a statement.

Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer and private employer, confirmed in November that it would also divest from DEI. These changes include removing sexual and transgender products from third-party merchants inappropriately marketed toward children from its online marketplace and ending its participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.

In a statement to FOX Business, Walmart said was “willing to change alongside our associates and customers who represent all of America.”

“We have made a journey and we know that we are not perfect, but every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open the doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers and to be a Walmart. for everyone,” the company said.

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Ford, Lowes, Tractor Supply Company, John Deere, Harley-Davidson and Walmart were some of the big companies that walked away from their DEI commitments in 2024. (Getty Images/Reuters/Fox News)

At least ten other American companies – Ford, Lowe’sBoeing, Caterpillar, Harley-Davidson, Polaris, John Deere, Tractor Supply Company, Jack Daniel’s and Molson Coors – also canceled DEI initiatives earlier in the year.

Other companies with a large corporate presence in the United States, such as Nissan and ToyotaThey also agreed to dissolve a number of their DEI practices by the end of 2024.

Starbuck, who has led campaigns against “woke” policies at Walmart and several other businesses, believes that people privately started aggravating DEI about two years ago. But in 2024, it became more socially acceptable for people to say out loud that these policies were “toxic,” he said.

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Walmart President and CEO John Furner confirmed that Walmart has moved away from some of its DEI policies. (FOX Business/Getty Images/Photo Illustration/FOXBusiness)

“This was the year when people were granted social permission, in many ways, to just talk and admit it. With every company that goes down, more and more people feel comfortable admitting that they have a problem with it.” Starbuck said Fox News Digital.

Universities are moving away from DEI amid growing pressure

DEI also opened the door to universities in the United States.

According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which followed higher education “decommissioning of DEI,“215 college campuses in 32 states have made changes to their DEI policies.

Public universities in several states have closed their DEI offices after lawmakers passed or introduced legislation banning state funding of DEIs.

After the Florida Board of Governors permanently banned taxpayer dollars be used to fund DEI programs in state schools in January, the University of Florida fired all employees in DEI positions to comply with the new regulations.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has announced new legislation aimed at cracking down on retail theft so that the crime wave seen in liberal states doesn’t come to the Sunshine State. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images/Getty Images)

The University of Texas at Austin also closed its DEI offices to comply with a new state law banning DEI offices at public universities. The anti-DEI law, signed by Governor Abbott in 2023, also limits universities from using diversity statements in hiring and training practices.

Alabama, Iowa and Utah joined Texas and Florida in banning DEI offices at public universities this year, according to Within Higher Ed.

Kansas and Idaho have also passed laws prohibiting public institutions from requiring diversity statements in hiring or admissions decisions.

Boise State University has become one of the latest schools to close its equity centers on the 29th of Novemberfollowed by the University of Michigan dismantling DEI statements as part of its faculty hiring, promotion and tenure requirements in December.

DEI still has a strong hold on most top US companies

While many leading companies have moved away from DEI by 2024, the majority of the nation’s largest companies still maintain some form of commitment to these practices, according to a recent report from the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation.

Heritage looked at company statements, annual reports and other publicly available documents from every Fortune 500 company and found 485 of the top 500 companies continue to maintain DEI priorities.

The British automobile Jaguar was a company that remarkably doubled after facing criticism, it took its brand in a new “woke” direction with its recent rebranding.

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Starbuck knows that his fight against the “woke” ideology in major American companies is not over.

Some companies will “do the right thing” by dissolving DEI, he predicted, while others will try to rebuild under other names.

“We have work to do to institutionally get rid of the wiring and the foundations here, because a lot of this stuff is deep in our society in ways that most people don’t even understand,” he said.

“DEI is a wounded animal, so expect desperate maneuvers from the people who pushed him,” he continued. “But this means that we are at the beginning of his death.”

Fox News’ Alec Schemmel contributed to this report.