(Bloomberg) — AT&T Inc. is no longer encouraging employees to wear pins that state their favored pronouns and has canceled a series of LGBTQ-friendly events in the most recent effort by a big company to roll back its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The company’s chief diversity officer, Michelle Jordan, is now listed as vice president of culture and inclusion on LinkedIn. Her team has been renamed as well, a person close to AT&T said. The company will no longer fund the Trevor Project, a suicide prevention group for LGBTQ youth, or Turn Up the Love, a series of Pride events that partnered with musical artists.
Some of the changes were outlined in a social media post Friday by anti-DEI crusader Robby Starbuck.
The Dallas-based telephone company is cutting back on the external surveys it participates in, such as the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which measures companies LGBTQ friendliness, the person said. AT&T will end DEI-focused training in favor of leadership development, according to an internal memo reviewed by Bloomberg. It will award contracts based on value, quality and function, while expanding its supplier program to include more small and local businesses.
AT&T employee scholarships will now be open to all, the person said. Past awards had been targeted for minority groups like Hispanic students. The company will also no longer offer preferred pronoun pins in an employee store, according to the person.
President Donald Trump has banned the use of preferred programs in the federal government and has said he may target private companies for “illegal” diversity programs.
AT&T joins more than two dozen companies — from Amazon.com Inc. to Walmart Inc. — that have made changes to their DEI programs in the face of threats of boycotts, lawsuits and more recently, federal prosecution. The pressure increased after Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi set a March 1 deadline for a report outlining potential targets among companies and other non-governmental organizations for investigation of DEI practices. The report, if completed, has not been made public. Federal contractors such as Citigroup Inc. , Accenture Plc and Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corp. have announced rollbacks since Trump’s inauguration.
AT&T declined to comment on specific changes, but a spokesperson said it’s “committed to serving customers across the country, being the industry’s best connectivity provider, and making sure that all Americans can get connected to the internet and enjoy the opportunities that it provides.”
Other communications companies, like AT&T, that are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission have recently found themselves in FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s crosshairs. Carr sent letters to Comcast Corp. and Verizon Communications Inc., demanding that they cease DEI programs.
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