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Amazon is scaling back on some of its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)programs, becoming the latest major corporation to make cuts to such initiatives that critics have deemed "woke."
In a message to employees last month, Amazon human resources executive Candi Castleberry announced updates to the company's representation and inclusion efforts, and said the e-commerce giant would be making some changes after spending the past few years "evaluat[ing] their effectiveness."
"We worked to unify employee groups together under one umbrella, and build programs that are open to all," the memo, obtained by FOX Business reads. "Rather than have individual groups build programs, we are focusing on programs with proven outcomes - and we also aim to foster a more truly inclusive culture."
The release of the memo, first reported by Bloomberg on Friday, followed a report from earlier in the day from The Information, showing that Amazon had also recently scrubbed sections entitled Equity for Black people and LGBTQ+ rights from its "Our Positions" page on its website.
In response, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement, "We update this page from time to time to ensure that it reflects updates we've made to various programs and positions."
Amazon is the latest in a host of companies to roll back DEI initiatives in the past year, following fellow retail behemoth Walmart, as well as Ford, Caterpillar, John Deere and Toyota. However, Amazon has been more subtle in its moves, unlike others like Meta, which announced sweeping changes to its DEI policies earlier on Friday.
Robby Starbuck, the anti-woke activist and filmmaker who has led the successful campaign to pressure companies to end DEI initiatives, says he notified Amazon executives in December that he would be reporting on their "woke policies" unless they committed to making changes.
Full text:In a post on X following the news of Amazon's changes, Starbuck threatened to expose the company's purported wokeness by the end of this month unless the company clarifies the changes that have been made.
"BIG News: On Dec. 4th I notified Amazon that they'd be an upcoming focus for us in 2025 as part of our project to expose woke companies.
Today they're announcing a halt to some DEI policies and they've removed language about DEI goals and transgenderism from their site.
Amazon has NOT however listed what those changes are going to be and they have NOT communicated those changes to me.
If they do not specifically state what these changes are, I'll proceed with our report later this month exposing their woke policies, practices and failures because the public deserves to know if these policies still reflect Amazon's views. If they don't, then Amazon should say so.
For clarity, I've only shown part of my correspondence below to verify what I'm saying."
"We won't stop until corporate America is sane again and adopts corporate neutrality on divisive issues," Starbuck told FOX Business. "It's yet to be seen how far Amazon is going to go to adopt merit, but it's our hope that they go far enough for us to refocus our reporting efforts elsewhere."
Comment: Starbuck is a heavy-hitter in the fight to ban woke policies. His ability to weaponize social media has CEOs quaking in their boots, often provoking change even without having to start a Twitter expose. Woe to Jeff Bezos if he intends to duck the issue :