Sources say Google has rolled back diversity programs, but Google disputes the claims and says it's adding outside help to scale racial equity training globally
This dispute lands weeks before George Floyd's murder turns corporate racial equity into a public test for Big Tech: within a month of these dueling accounts, Google had formed a racial equity task force built around staff feedback and its Black leadership groups, even as sources described a response that isolated Black employees without structural change.
Google's Black employees and the advocacy groups pressing the company are left with two contradictory accounts — internal sources describing retrenchment, management pointing to globally expanded training — making the task force and Black leadership groups the only verifiable channel for what is actually changing.
Outside trainers and consultants gain the engagement either way: Google's defense of its record is to bring in external help to scale racial equity training worldwide, converting an internal dispute into a procurement decision.
Second-order effects
Because the company's own metrics keep undercutting its narrative — more Black hires alongside rising attrition, especially among Black women — Google is eventually forced into the costlier route of a third-party civil rights audit, and rivals facing the same pressure can expect auditors, not press releases, to become the standard proof of compliance.
The gap between what sources report internally and what Google says publicly raises the price of the company's denials, pushing future disputes toward documents — memos, emails, reports — that employees and reporters can cite directly.
Third-order effects
The arc from 2020's contested pledges to 2025's rescinded hiring goals suggests tech DEI programs are cyclical rather than structural: commitments expand under activist and political pressure, then contract when the political direction reverses, with outsourced training and audits surviving as the durable residue.
If that pattern holds, the binding constraints on corporate racial equity shift from voluntary company targets to external mechanisms — litigation, regulator attention, and independent audits — since internal goals proved reversible on both ends of the cycle.
The trend: Big Tech racial-equity programs inflate under activist pressure and deflate under political pressure, with outside trainers and law-firm audits outlasting the internal hiring goals they were meant to support.
SCOOP: Google has drastically rolled back its diversity work due to fears of being perceived as anti-conservative. Sources say employees have been pushed out, programs cut, and workers have been discouraged from even using the word diversity anymore https://www.nbcnews.com/...
Yet again, tech companies shift even further to the right for fear of being perceived as on the left (which they aren't and never were) https://twitter.com/...
if only we had a few billion dollars more in liquid cash and another 5000 employees maybe we could manage to build d&i trainings... but its too hard... https://twitter.com/...
It's worrisome that the company that makes the most influential artificial intelligence products in the world is allegedly scaling back on its efforts to ensure a diverse and inclusive workforce, considering what we know about AI bias. https://twitter.com/...
There are right & wrong ways to deprioritize “diversity” in tech. I argue in Hacking Diversity that privileging “justice” over “diversity” is good for techies & the rest of us. Google's reasons are... steps in the wrong direction, shall we say. https://twitter.com/...
why would google want to hire more conservatives? have they not noticed that every ‘conservative’ replacement for sites they got kicked off of never scaled well? their sites were constantly falling over. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
It's really impressive how quickly many in corporate America moved away from diversity in the Trump era. Even Google didn't make it three years. https://twitter.com/...
Holy crap conservatism running roughshod over Google. Just Bible studies in every conference room and portraits of Russell Kirk everywhere and if you immanatize the eschaton ONCE they fire your ass. We did it fam. https://twitter.com/...
can a company deprioritize something it didn't prioritize very well in the first place? I guess things can always get worse ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ https://twitter.com/...
I would love to see a non-agenda-driven look at whether these programs actually work. Clearly they're well-intended, but: I worked at Google a decade ago, there were loads of diversity-focused initiatives, and it seems things have gotten worse, not better. https://www.nbcnews.com…
The Right is so good at gaming the refs. I think most folks on the Left still don't grasp just how much the other side has optimized faux outrage. https://twitter.com/...
remembering when a CTO told me that it was ridiculous to believe that companies would cut back on D&I in the wake of the 2016 election. someone should search for the exact wording of that. pretty sure it was in a public channel. https://twitter.com/...
yet another reminder that nothing actually matters to these companies, and whether they're putting diversity programs in place or removing them, it's all just pr https://twitter.com/...
This is truly pathetic behavior on the part of @google. Once again, conservative activists work the tech company refs to keep that landscape as white and male and inherently biased TOWARD white males as possible. So so gross: https://www.nbcnews.com/...
Google is a model for workplace culture in Silicon Valley and beyond. There's a concern other companies could follow suit, and that if Google and other tech companies deprioritize diversity, that philosophy will impact the AI products that we all rely on https://www.nbcnews.com/.…
Sources told me new diversity trainings at Google lack the racial justice framework that employees worked hard to build. Google confirmed its turning to vendors to create its diversity training, saying it lacks the resources to build D&I trainings in-house https://www.nbcnews.com…
FWIW I was told last year by folks that Sojourn (a more challenging racial justice program than your usual D&I fare) was cut because it made white employees at Google very uncomfortable https://www.nbcnews.com/...