Some Illinois companies are pulling back on their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, as President Donald Trump continues his push to eliminate such programs from the federal government.
Chicago-based fast-food chain McDonald’s was the latest company to announce plans to roll back DEI efforts, saying in early January that it would end representation goals, pause external surveys and rebrand its diversity team as the Global Inclusion Team. It joined Moline-based John Deere, which said in a July 2024 post on X that it will no longer support “social or culture awareness events” and will audit its training materials “to ensure the absence of socially motivated messages.”
In the past year, other large companies such as Disney, Google, Target, Walmart, Amazon, Meta and Ford Motor Co. have scaled back or halted their DEI commitments. That’s in addition to Boeing, Lowe’s, Harley Davidson, Tractor Supply Co. and Jack Daniels.
Amid this landscape, the Sun-Times reviewed the DEI strategies of 15 major Illinois-based public companies to see if their DEI policies have changed. A review of each company found many still referenced a DEI strategy on their websites or in their latest annual reports. But it also found that some changed their policies within the last month.
Of the 15 companies, only Exelon Corp. confirmed its commitment to DEI initiatives, while five of the companies declined to comment and nine did not respond to requests for comment.
The 15 companies reviewed include:
- Allstate Corp., insurance firm headquartered in Northbrook
- Archer Daniels Midland Co., agricultural supply chain manager and processor based in Chicago
- Baxter International, Deerfield-based medical product maker
- Conagra Brands, consumer packaged goods food company in Chicago
- Exelon Corp., utility company in Chicago
- Grubhub, Chicago-based food delivery business
- Hyatt Hotels Corp., hospitality firm based in Chicago
- JLL, real estate services company in Chicago
- Kraft Heinz, Chicago-based food and beverage maker
- Mondelez International, food company in Chicago
- Portillo’s, restaurant chain based in Oak Brook
- State Farm, Bloomington-based insurer
- United Airlines, based in Chicago
- US Foods, food distributor in Rosemont
- Walgreens Boots Alliance, pharmacy retailer in Chicago
While DEI plans have been used to reduce employment discrimination, opponents have increasingly used the term to describe an unfair hiring advantage for so-called unqualified people of color, though studies have shown hiring gaps for minorities persist. There’s also been a wave of intense conservative backlash and lawsuits against companies with DEI initiatives.
And some companies, including in Illinois, are giving in by changing the name of their DEI initiatives or scaling back, while others stay quiet about their commitments. Yet DEI experts and advocates say fear of public pushback and litigation are furthering inequity instead of eliminating it.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who is among a cohort of attorneys general pushing back, has publicly called on companies to maintain their DEI initiatives.
“I have no problem with companies reviewing their policies to make sure that they’re not violative of anti-discrimination laws,” Raoul said. “But I will be critical of people who run away from the nomenclature, because I think that’s weak. And I will be critical of people who totally abandon efforts to be inclusive.”
Despite companies’ efforts to employ and promote more women over the past decade, they are still underrepresented across all positions, according to the 2024 Women in the Workplace study by McKinsey & Co. and LeanIn.Org. Women make up 29% of C-suite positions, with women of color accounting for 7%, according to the report, which surveyed approximately 15,000 employees and 280 HR leaders at 281 U.S. organizations that collectively employ more than 10 million.
And at the rate of progress over the last 10 years, it would take nearly 50 years for the percentage of women in senior leadership to reflect their percentage of the U.S. population.
Businesses need to address “weak spots” in their pipelines by promoting women at equal rates to men and investing in more leadership development for women, according to the report.
Research by the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance found Asian, Black and Hispanic/Latino workers represent 37% of the U.S. workforce, but the population accounts for 23% of C-suite positions among companies in the S&P 100.
Changing policies
Scholarships or other funding to historically Black colleges and universities is a common part of some companies’ DEI strategies. Illinois businesses like Conagra, Baxter International and Hyatt have made such contributions.
McDonald’s offered a Hispanic college scholarship program, called HACER. But last month, it said it would no longer require Hispanic/Latino heritage for students who apply to the decades-old program, settling a lawsuit filed by the American Alliance for Equal Rights, which also is suing Bally’s over its Chicago minority investment program. The lawsuit against McDonald’s said the fast-food giant discriminated against non-Hispanics by not making the scholarship available to everyone.
McDonald’s declined to comment, referring the Sun-Times to its January announcement on DEI changes.
The Chicago area branch of the McDonald’s Hispanic Owner-Operators Association did not respond to requests for comment. The National Black McDonald’s Operators Association told the Sun-Times no one was available for an interview.
While most firms reviewed by the Sun-Times mentioned a commitment to increasing diversity among employees and suppliers, only Mondelēz, Walgreens and Kraft Heinz reported representation goals for specific groups, including women and people of color.
In 2021, Kraft Heinz set goals to have 30% of its salaried U.S. employees identify as people of color and 50% of its global management positions to be filled by women by 2025, as part of an effort to have its staff reflect the larger population. At the end of 2023, the company reported that people of color represented 29% of its salaried U.S. employees, up from 27% in 2021, and 43% of global management positions held by women, up from 39% in 2021, according to a review of its annual reports.
Mondelēz, Allstate and Hyatt reported goals for achieving a certain percentage or amount spent with minority-owned suppliers. Hyatt said it surpassed its 2025 goal to allocate 10% of its diverse and women-owned supplier spend with Black businesses, hitting 50% as of year-end 2023.
But in the past month, the Sun-Times found companies such as Walgreens, Conagra and Archer Daniels Midland made changes to their DEI terminology, or cut back reporting on their websites and annual reports.
Archer Daniels Midland changed the name of its strategy from “diversity, equity and inclusion” to “culture, engagement and inclusion.” It removed language about its “diverse talent slates and interview panels” and “advancement of colleagues from underrepresented backgrounds.” It also removed items from a list of DEI commitments such as participation in a coalition focused on “gender balance in global leadership” and partnership with the Jobs for America’s Graduates career program.
United cut back its DEI reporting in its 2023 annual report amid criticism from billionaire Elon Musk and America First Legal, a conservative advocacy group founded by Trump aide Stephen Miller. A year earlier, its 2022 report had included goals of having “90% of interview slates include a diverse set of candidates,” at least half of its United Aviate Academy graduates be women or people of color and at least half of its technicians in its apprenticeship program be women or people of color.
It’s unclear if United has eliminated some initiatives, because a company spokesperson would say only, “We don’t have anything new to share at this time.”
For the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s 2025 Corporate Equality Index, which has measured LGBTQ+ workplace equality for more than 20 years, only Portillo’s and Grubhub did not participate out of the companies the Sun-Times analyzed. McDonald’s did not say whether its decision to pause responses to external surveys indicates a withdrawal from future participation in the Corporate Equality Index, when asked by the Sun-Times.
“It’s unfortunate because performing well on those surveys and being a workplace that is lauded by this organization is a selling point and is something that signals to employees from these groups that this company cares about these issues,” said Ivuoma Onyeador, assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
“What is their messaging going to be around these efforts moving forward? And I’m also curious what employees are going to ask of their employers, because despite the fact that there’s this external pressure on every side, there are also employees for whom there are ramifications for these choices.”
Companies like JLL and United have acknowledged the potential consequences of not meeting DEI standards in their most recent annual reports.
United Airlines said, “The Company’s reputation or brand image could be adversely impacted by … any failure or perceived failure to achieve and/or make progress toward our environmental, safety, diversity, equity and inclusion or other social and governance (‘ESG’) goals.”
Raoul said he will continue to monitor the potential discriminatory impact of DEI policy revisions.
He, along with 15 other states’ attorneys general, issued a guidance on Feb. 13 to help companies retain DEI initiatives while remaining legally compliant. Raoul also sent a letter on Jan. 9, with 12 other attorneys general, to Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon asking him to reconsider cuts to its diversity initiatives that were announced in November, such as phasing out supplier diversity programs, ending equity training for staff and removing the words “diversity” and “DEI” from company documents.
“Voices on the other side need to be equally aggressive and to begin to say, ‘If you’re not willing to employ me and contract with people who look like me, I don’t need to shop at your store,’” Raoul said. “Hopefully, the strength of that counter-voice will grow. It’s important to not allow certain voices to stretch the [Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling] further than it actually goes.”
Consumer pushback has increased. Minneapolis-based Target was the subject of a boycott shortly after announcing last month it was dropping DEI initiatives. And earlier this month, the daughters of Target’s late cofounder, Bruce Dayton, expressed alarm and shock over the rollback in a letter to the editor published in the Los Angeles Times and the Financial Times.
John Deere said in its 2024 annual report: “We experienced negative social media campaigns related to our approach to diversity and inclusion.” The company did not respond to requests for comment.
Last week, the NAACP published a guide to encourage consumers to spend their money on brands that have stood by commitments to DEI.
Politicians also have been vocal over the past few months, with 49 House members, led by U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, sending a letter to Fortune 1000 leaders asking them to retain their programs.
Meanwhile, companies like Issaquah, Washington-based Costco; Cupertino, California-based tech giant Apple; and Delta Airlines in Atlanta have said they will remain committed to DEI strategies. Others include Ben & Jerry’s, based in South Burlington, Vermont, JPMorgan Chase in New York and e.l.f. Cosmetics in Oakland, California.
Fear of litigation
The recent shift is a stark contrast from five years ago when companies were bolstering DEI efforts following the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. Many firms shared their support of diversity and equity programs, announcing plans to be more inclusive with new employee training and creating DEI-specific roles, among other efforts.
However, legal backlash picked up after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 dismantling of affirmative action in college admissions. Conservative groups such as the American Alliance for Equal Rights and America First Legal have filed discrimination lawsuits against firms with DEI policies.
“If you were committed to diversity, equity and inclusion in 2020, what has changed now, other than the pressure from these ideologues?” Raoul said. “The anti-DEI rhetoric has gotten so bad. And it’s frankly racist when people refer to people as DEI candidates.”
Onyeador, who is also a racial equity fellow at Harvard Business School, said companies are now taking a variety of approaches.
“Some companies are preemptively trying to manage lawsuits,” Onyeador said. “The work may still be getting done, but they’re calling it something different, or some companies are getting rid of certain programs that they’re worried are subject to lawsuits. Many companies are trying to figure out how to do the work that they value, that they see is key to their corporate mission, while avoiding potential legal exposure.”
McDonald’s, for example, has said its commitment to inclusion is “steadfast,” and that it will continue to report demographic information about its staff, board and suppliers.
Raoul encouraged companies to continue tracking diversity and said the act of measuring doesn’t violate any laws.
“There’s a distinction between a quota and a goal,” he said. “You can have a goal of having your workplace reflect the population of the state or the country that you’re within. That doesn’t mean you’re discriminating.”
The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce declined to comment on the city’s DEI landscape.
Onyeador said companies may be avoiding the appearance of violating laws by removing the word “diversity” from their initiatives.
“I think that diversity has a connotation of race,” she said. “These people who are suing these companies are [against] the full inclusion of racial minorities and the full inclusion of Black people in corporate America and higher education. So, I think that [companies] are removing ‘diversity’ because their perception is that this litigation is about race.”
Critics, including Musk and conservative activist Robby Starbuck, have launched anti-DEI campaigns. Recently, right-wing influencers and public figures blamed the California wildfires and the New Year’s Eve fatal truck attack in New Orleans on DEI initiatives. And Trump drew blacklash last month for saying DEI may be to blame for the fatal midair collision between an Army Black Hawk helicopter and American Airlines jet in Washington, D.C.
Onyeador said focusing on the word “inclusion” instead of diversity may, for now, make companies safe from a lawsuit.
Raoul said removing references to diversity ignores its impact on a company’s bottom line.
“If you’re marketing to a diverse base of consumers, it’s helpful to have diverse employees and diverse leaders on your team to be more successful and more profitable,” he said. “We shouldn’t be running from the word diversity, because it is a business value.”