JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs Group, and Costco Exhibit Courage Against DEI Activists

Major industry leaders are pushing back on the DEI activists in light of the recent Trump pressures to roll back DEI? initiatives across the US. On January 22, 2025, both JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs are making a stand.

In television appearances Wednesday (January 22, 2025), JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said in a CNBC interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, “Bring them on.” Dimon was clear that including marginalized groups in JPMorgan’s business is good for its bottom line and that he regularly receives praise for the bank’s DEI efforts from community leaders and local government officials across the country. “We’re going to continue to reach out to the Black community, the Hispanic community, the LGBT community, the veterans community,” he said.

Goldman CEO David Solomon said in a separate CNBC interview that while he hasn’t looked at the specific shareholder proposals, his company is attuned to what its clients are asking for. “They think about decarbonization, they think about climate transition. They think about their businesses, how they find talent, the diversity of the talent they find all over the world,” he said. “We continue to stay focused on talking to our clients and doing the things we’ve always done.”

However, not everyone dares to challenge the new political dynamics, which are concerning and will set back the progress of many marginalized communities.?

Just a day after taking office, Trump challenged DEI policies to corporate America, targeting federal contractors and publicly traded companies for practices he labeled “dangerous, demeaning and immoral.” An executive order issued late Tuesday (January 22) expanded the president’s directive on banning DEI policies beyond the government, urging all federal agencies to encourage corporations and other groups to end “illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.”?

The United States will recognize only two sexes, male and female, that are unchangeable, President Donald Trump ordered on Monday as he moved to quickly end a range of policies aimed at promoting racial equity and protecting rights for LGBTQ+ people.

The order requires the government to use the term "sex" rather than "gender" while mandating that identification documents issued by the government, including passports and visas, be based on what it described as "an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female." Trump’s order also implies that some companies will face investigations and legal action if their programs are deemed to be discriminatory.

Companies like Walmart Inc. and Meta Platforms Inc. both unveiled plans to roll back their DEI programs. Walmart faced pressure from the anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck, but the company said its changes were designed to “foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers.”

Costco also faced pressures from shareholders but rejected a proposal urging the wholesale club operator to evaluate any risks posed by its diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. According to preliminary results shared by Costco executives at its annual meeting, more than 98% of shares voted against the proposal. The directors’ message to shareholders details how having diverse employees and suppliers has, in their view, fostered “creativity and innovation in the merchandise and services that we offer” and led to greater customer satisfaction among Costco members.

Why are these developments concerning from an AI Ethicist point of view?

Marginalization of humans based on cultural diversity or only into male or female classification bands will constrain insights.? AI is all about pattern recognition and classifiers. Ensuring our data sets that evolve are truly representative of all cultures and diverse personas is critical to minimizing AI data bias.?

Appreciating that we need diverse cultures in our hiring practices goes against all the global research on how to increase productivity and profitability - by ensuring we have diversity in our operating practices and designing products and services that meet different persona profiles. It is well recognized by leading experts like McKinsey who have for over a decade issued a series of Diversity Matters reports demonstrating the relationship between leadership diversity and company performance. Companies in the top quartile of this research confirmed that for both gender and ethnic diversity in executive teams are, on average, 9 percent more likely to outperform their peers. Meanwhile, those in the bottom quartile for both are 66 percent less likely to outperform financially on average, indicating that lack of diversity may be getting more expensive.

From an AI Ethics perspective, these recent DEI pedaling backward is very concerning. AI is all about pattern recognition and classifiers, so the real question is: are we stripping away precious identities that need to be recognized and heard? Marginalization reduces hope.

At SalesChoice, we have partnered with The Hispanic Alliance for Career Enhancement (HACE), a national non-profit dedicated to the employment, development, and advancement of current and aspiring Latino professionals. Since 1982, HACE has served as a resource for Latinos in the workplace and is a subject matter expert for corporations seeking to access diverse talent through professional development resources and networks, and by facilitating access to meaningful career opportunities. JPMorgan is also a sponsor of HACE.

You can see our research on AI in relationship to DEI here. We also have a new AI SaaS Employee Engagement tool to track how employee moods are shifting, and we can extract deep insights using generative AI and ML methods, not just employee sentiments but also we can cluster any issues that relate to diversity inclusion and equity or any other major thematic pattern. We also need to ensure we appreciate diversity in appreciating different gender views, male or female, and collaboration social communication dynamics can either strengthen knowledge flow and productivity or create a toxic work environment. You can learn more about MoodInsights here.

Summary

As many organizations across the USA declare they are canceling their DEI initiatives, as leaders we need to ask ourselves, have we sufficiently matured to confirm that we have authentically created a diverse workforce that respects all aspects of diversity??

Harder questions need to be asked.?

Are our boards of directors diverse enough to ensure we are gaining new perspectives to guide our organization’s strategy? With movements like Black Voices Matter, we saw firsthand the cruelty of the killing of George Floyd in police custody and the wave of despair of such brutality in our trusted, safe keepers. We know we don’t have sufficient diversity in our governance and leadership structures, especially in more traditional sectors, but also the lack of senior female representation in the high-tech industry, especially in AI organizations.

The leadership of CEOs of JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Costco stands strong in staying true to their vision that diversity is a critical engine to enable economic growth and productivity.?

Courage is never easy, but not cowering to pressures when faced with challenging situations that have risks.?

“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

Research Sources:

D’Innocenzio, A. (January 23, 2025). “Costco successfully defends its diversity policies as other US companies scale theirs back.” AP. Flitter, E, Green, J, Foxman, S. (January 22, 2025). JPMorgan, GoldMan Resist Rolling Back their DEI Initiatives. Bloomberg. Weissener, D. (January 23, 2025). Explainer: Trump says corporate diversity efforts are illegal - but are they? Reuters.