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President Donald Trump ended federal DEI programs. Even before, companies were having second thoughts. Victoria's Secret changed "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" to "inclusion and belonging." Now, even woke Disney, despite squandering 270 million shareholder dollars on a moronic new version of "Snow White," joined the mob of companies dropping DEI programs. Why? Diversity, equity and inclusion sound good. The problem is that DEI programs were captured by activists who obsess about victimhood. They divide people more than they empower.

"Diversity, equity and inclusion," says activist Robby Starbuck, "don't mean what they pretend to mean."

Before Trump ended federal DEI programs by executive order, Starbuck ended them at some companies merely by using the power of speech. His strategy: warn companies that he'll tell his social media followers what stupid things they do. Remarkably, that worked! After he criticized John Deere on Twitter for encouraging "preferred pronouns" and holding woke diversity trainings, John Deere quickly dropped those policies. Toyota, Target and Harley Davidson did, too. "Why did they listen to you?" I ask.

"We go to them like any other investigative journalist and we say, 'Hey, we have a story we're working on.'" Then, if they don't change their policies, he goes public -- posting the policies and his criticism on YouTube, Twitter, etc.

One week after he posted that Toyota sponsored pride parades and divided workers into identity-based groups such as LGBT, Black and Christian, Toyota stopped sponsoring LGBTQ events and opened employee groups to all workers. Coors has been requiring DEI trainings and donating to pride events. All it took was Starbuck looking into the company, and they stopped. So did Jack Daniels, McDonald's, Walmart, AT&T, Lowe's and Ford. "I like diversity," I tell him, suggesting DEI programs were good.

"They sound warm and fuzzy," says Starbuck. "It's why at the beginning, it got a lot of buy-in ... I want to include everybody. I don't want to be mean. What it actually turned out to be in reality looked more like crazy trainings, overtly racist hiring practices, diametrically opposed to the very warm, fuzzy sounding words they try to sell." I think private companies should be able to have whatever policies they want. Customers and workers can buy other products or work someplace else. But over the past few years, DEI mandates became so prevalent, you couldn't avoid them. I'm a Chase Bank customer. The bank is run by a very smart guy, Jamie Dimon. Just last year, Dimon said DEI is "good for business; it's morally right; we're quite good at it." But after Starbuck revealed JPMorgan's policies, Dimon quickly changed his mind.

"I saw how we were spending money on some of this stupid s--t," Dimon said, "and it really pissed me off ... I'm just going to cancel them. I don't like wasted money in bureaucracy." In my years of reporting, I've never seen changes this fast. DEI activists are angry about it.

The president of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation says, "We will not be erased!"

"What existed before DEI?" replies Starbuck. "Did black people not exist before that?"

On "The View," host Sunny Hostin claims, "This will specifically harm women ... African Americans and Latinos."

"What she's actually saying is that minorities are not going to be able to get jobs if the sole thing you're looking at is merit. The way I was raised, you call that racism," replies Starbuck. "She's being racist."

I push back: "They're just saying, 'We have a history of disadvantage. We were slaves in this country.'"

"None of them were," he points out. "I'm Cuban. I could say my family went through this and that. I didn't go through it. I'm not going to claim their disadvantage as my own."

"We're not going to fall for the same stupid stuff anymore. We're going to judge people based on merit."

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John Stossel is the author of "Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media."

Copyright 2025 Creators Syndicate, Inc.