Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index report

McDonald's, World's Fourth-Largest Employer, Ends DEI Goals Following Supreme Court Decision

Jan 7, 2025, 03:00 AM

McDonald's, the world's fourth-largest employer, announced that it is rolling back some of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, citing a shifting legal landscape following the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2023 decision that outlawed affirmative action in college admissions. The company will retire specific diversity goals for senior leadership levels and will no longer require its suppliers to sign DEI commitments or participate in the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index. Instead, McDonald's is rebranding its diversity team as a 'global inclusion team' and introducing what it calls a 'golden rule,' where everyone is treated 'with dignity, fairness, and respect.' This move aligns McDonald's with other major corporations such as Walmart, Ford, John Deere, and Harley-Davidson that have recently rolled back DEI programs amid conservative backlash against what critics term 'woke' corporate policies.