Goldman Sachs will remove DEI’s board recruitment standards amid the policy change
Cornell University law professor William Jacobson discusses desegregation in the higher education system and op-ed that college students are no longer awake.
Goldman Sachs plans to remove DEI’s hiring standards from the board of directors, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
The company removed the board diversity requirement for companies that went public last year, but now plans to remove the DEI language from its board member bylaws this month. The board’s steering committee evaluates potential candidates based on four criteria, one of which is a cultural understanding of diversity, inclusiveness, background, work and military service.
That section also has “other demographics” tagged to the end, referring to race, gender identity, ethnicity and sexual orientation, according to the Journal. The board is now said to be planning to remove the reference to “other demographics.”
The expected change comes after the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC), a conservative non-profit organization with a minority stake in the bank, called for the change in September, according to the Journal.
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Goldman Sachs is rolling back its DEI hiring standards for its board of directors. (Getty Images)
Goldman Sachs struck a deal with the group in which the board would make the change at will and NLPC did not send a formal request distributed to shareholders ahead of the company’s annual shareholder meeting later this year, people familiar with the matter told the newspaper.
The change comes as part of a broader rejection of DEI policies, thanks in large part to President Donald Trump’s return to the White House last year.
Trump quickly dropped the hammer on DEI, signing an executive order on the first day titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preference,” which ordered federal agencies to phase them out. DEI style programs in every provincial government. The next day, Trump signed a second executive order aimed at “restoring merit-based opportunity,” including federal contract changes and related compliance.
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A view of the Goldman Sachs store on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
“We have ended the tyranny of policies called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in the entire federal government and in the private sector and in our military. And our country will not rise again,” Trump said in March.
The administration is also targeting DEI programs at top American universities, seeking new funding agreements with Columbia University, Harvard and others.
Harvard has been a major target in the Trump administration’s effort to use federal funding to crack down on anti-Semitism and “provocative” views.
In December, lawyers for The Trump administration appealed a judge’s order to restore $2.7 billion in frozen research funding to Harvard University.
Banners hang outside Memorial Church on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (Getty Images)
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Harvard sued the administration in April over its attempt to freeze federal funding and argued in court that the actions amounted to an unconstitutional “pressure campaign” to influence and control higher education institutions.
Fox News’ Emma Colton contributed to this report.
