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Comment by rurjckci384 | Hacker News Reader

It became a liability - corporates were legally threatened

This really didn't happen over here in Europe at all. That was mostly a US thing. Here it just faded out as it couldn't be leveraged.

At our place, it did not influence hiring decisions other than having a formal DEI position in the org which was disposed of almost immediately when it was seen as a cost and not a benefit.

Trump's threats were international and European businesses and media were very much talking about it at the time. Here's two examples from April 2025, the first is in Swedish:

* https://riks.se/nyheter/wallenberg%C3%A4gda-ericsson-tonar-n...

* https://swedenherald.com/article/ericsson-ceo-explains-dropp...

Here's one example.

Yeah it was wearing off by then anyway. So they got to blame it on Trump I think.

It just silently evaporated here during a "restructure".

What does "wearing off" mean and what evidence would you point to for that position?

I work in academia in Europe and, as I am a native English speaker, a longtime side gig is language revision of grant applications for other academics. I have worked with a hell of a lot of them in many fields of the humanities. A lot of grant-seekers were using American-inspired DEI language in their applications in the late 2010s and early 2020s, but this began to dwindle by late in Biden's term. I would agree with the claim made above that this particular rhetorical movement just ran out of steam as time passed and society quietly shifted, independent of Trump.

Source for _legally_ ?

Don't know about corporates, but Harvard was sued[0] for DEI-esque discrimination.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v...

Harvard lost due to obvious "anti" racist discrimination. It still seems to discriminate against whites and asians and in favour of blacks, but not as heavily as it used to.

Edit: forgot to to write "and asians".

(Legally as in, using the legal system)

DOJ sued Deloitte over DEI programs, they ended up settling for $21.5 million: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/deloitte-pay-215-mi...

Texas Attorney General declared DEI initiatives unconstitutional in a legal opinion: https://www.gibsondunn.com/texas-attorney-general-declares-p...

Several state Attorneys General sent legal threats to 20 major law firms over DEI: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republican-led-states-deman...

Texas Attorney General warned major banks that DEI programs violate feduciary duty: https://today.westlaw.com/Document/Ibce2fdc5dcec11efb708bbad...

There's a big difference between suing people for prima facie illegal hiring practices and suing people for holding Grace Hopper celebrations. We probably shouldn't conflate them. Your links, as best as I can tell, are about the former sort of activity - hiring or paying people differently on the basis of protected characteristics.

Probably, but corporations and assimilated organizations will not take the risk.

You understand that none of these companies believe the merits of why they are settling?

They are settling because, like the law firms Trump suborned, they didn't want the MAGA rage; especially in the case of Texas, where Trump may (correctly as it goes) think Paxton is a disgusting slug of a man, but still vocally supports him.

The legal system was just the venue. All of this is bullshit corporate spinelessness in the face of threats without merit, especially in firms like Deloitte, who do not want their M&A interfered with.

I don't understand why you're replying to me like that

> You understand that ...?

Yes I do

OK. That is fine. It was literally a question so as to work out if we were on the same page for what I wrote subsequently. I will make a mental note that the phrasing doesn't come across that way.

As an aside I think my brain jumped the track and had me thinking I was replying to another commenter I'd replied to already -- who wrote a sibling comment to yours.

My apologies.

No worries! :)

You can add IBM to the list. They paid a settlement for their practice of tying executive bonuses to quotas: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/ibm-pays-17-million-resolve-a...

Every statement from company officials such as "we only employ women" or "toxic males", can be used as evidence at court. It is very difficult to prove bias from vague sanitized corporate language, direct "activist" statements make proving such bias very easy. For example recent lawsuit with IBM!

> "we only employ women"

But I highly doubt most companies were saying that or implying it. There's more to DEI than having minority quotas. Would DEI practices such as campaigns to encourage more men to go into nursing, midwifery or teaching be targeted too?

> such as campaigns to encourage more men to go into nursing, midwifery or teaching be targeted too?

These aren't illegal and have never been the problem.

Discriminational hiring practices and quotas are, unfortunately DEI activists decided to do these.

But the administration is going after those same types of programs when they target women or minorities.

Minorities like men?

Some do I’m sure. I’m not sure what this has to do with the discussion.

> These aren't illegal and have never been the problem.

This is being contested right now. And so, unless you enjoy getting sued, you won't do it.

Just because you agree with the current administration on certain topics, does not mean that you necessarily agree with them on all topics. This is a case of you projecting your opinion based on what your beliefs without checking whether reality matches.

Few companies said that they only employ women. That would be too overt.

But plenty of companies very publicly instituted policies to financially penalize their employees if they fail to meet gender quotas. Remember, a policy of giving a bonus when an "inclusion milestone" of X% women in technical roles is reached is fundamentally the same thing as instituting a penalty when that X% quota is missed.

Yeah there's a decent chance that DEI practices to do this violate neutrally-written US civil rights law, and also make women doing nursing or midwifery angry enough to use lawsuits in order to end these programs.

There's a case going through the courts for Red Hat right now where they based managerial bonuses on how diverse their teams were, which reportedly led to them pushing out white males.

Such should rightfully be illegal.

Companies couldn't hide their blatant racism and sexism behind DEI any longer. Corporates were legally threatened for violating Civil Rights laws.

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