In Union County, South Carolina, the sprawling cotton mills that once put bread on the table for many are long gone. Union is also what is termed a “food desert”, where many residents live far from the nearest supermarket. So in 2016, local non-profit director Elise Ashby began working with farmers to deliver discounted boxes of farm-fresh produce across the county, where 30% of the population is black and roughly 25% live in poverty.

To fund this, Ms Ashby first relied on her own savings and then some small-scale grants. But in 2023, the Walmart Foundation – the philanthropic arm of one of America’s largest corporations – awarded her over $100,000 (£80,000), as part of a $1.5m programme to fund “community-based non-profits led by people of colour”.

“I cried a little bit,” she says. “It was just one of those times where, like, somebody actually sees what you’re doing.”

Two years ago, this was the kind of programme that attracted sponsorship from major companies across America, as the country grappled with racism past and present following the murder of George Floyd, a black man suffocated under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer during an arrest in 2020.

But now, those same companies are pulling back. Walmart announced in November that it was ending some of its diversity initiatives, including plans to close its Center for Racial Equity, which supported Ms Ashby’s grant.

Corporations from Meta and Google to Goldman Sachs and McDonald’s have all announced similar changes as part of a larger retreat from diversity, equity and inclusion programmes (DEI) across the corporate landscape.

The moment represents a stark cultural shift, fuelled in part by fears of lawsuits, investigations, and social media backlash, as well as relentless pressure from the new president of the United States.

Since assuming office in January, Donald Trump has aggressively sought to “terminate DEI” and “restore merit-based opportunity” in the US. He has directed the federal government to end its DEI programmes and investigate private companies and academic institutions thought to be engaged in “illegal DEI”.

In the early days of his second term, the Veterans Affairs department has closed its DEI offices, the Environmental Protection Agency has placed nearly 200 employees who worked in its civil rights office on paid leave and Trump has fired the top military general, a black man whom his defence secretary had previously said should be fired because of his involvement in “woke” DEI.

At first sight, it may appear that the US’s experiment with policies designed to improve outcomes for specific racial and identity-based groups is finished. But some experts suggest there’s another possibility, that some such efforts will continue – but in a different guise, one more suited to the political mood of a country that has just elected a president who has pledged a war on “woke”.

Programmes resembling DEI first emerged in earnest in the US in the 1960s, in the wake of the civil rights movement that fought to protect and expand the rights of black Americans.

Under names like “affirmative action” and “equal opportunity”, initially their aim was to reverse the damaging effects of centuries of enslavement of African Americans and decades of discrimination under “Jim Crow” laws that enforced racial segregation.

As the movement evolved, promoting the rights of women, the LGBT community, and other racial and ethnic groups, use of the terms “diversity”, “equity” and “inclusion” became more widespread.

DEI programmes in the corporate world and government agencies have often focused on hiring practices and policies emphasising diversity as a commercial benefit. Their supporters say they aim to address disparities affecting people from a range of backgrounds, though a significant emphasis tends to be on race.

The programmes saw a huge upswing in 2020 during the social unrest of the Black Lives Matter movement. For example, Walmart committed $100m over five years to its racial equity centre. Wells Fargo appointed its first chief diversity officer; Google and Nike already had theirs in place. After adjusting their hiring practices, companies listed on the S&P 100 added more than 300,000 jobs – 94% of which went to people of colour, according to Bloomberg.

But almost as quickly as the pendulum swung left, a conservative backlash began. For Stefan Padfield, executive director of conservative think-tank the National Center for Public Policy Research, DEI programmes are based on a premise that “divides people on the basis of race and sex”.

More recently, these arguments that programmes intended to combat discrimination were themselves discriminatory, particularly against white Americans, have been made with increasing force. Training sessions emphasising concepts like “white privilege” and racial bias have drawn particular scrutiny.

The roots of this opposition took hold in conservative opposition to critical race theory (CRT), an academic concept which argues racism is endemic to American society. Over time, the campaign to remove books from classrooms that allegedly indoctrinated students into CRT thinking evolved into one focused on “punishing woke corporations”.

Social media accounts like End Wokeness and conservative activists such as Robby Starbuck seized the moment to target companies accused of being “woke”. Mr Starbuck has taken credit for changes in policy at the likes of Ford, John Deere and Harley-Davidson after he publicised details of their DEI initiatives to his social media followers.

One of the clearest signs of this movement’s strength came in spring 2023, after a Bud Light partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney sparked right-wing outrage and calls for a boycott of the beer and its parent company Anheuser-Busch. In the aftermath of the campaign, Bud Light sales were 28% lower than usual, a Harvard Business Review analysis found.

Another major victory for conservatives arrived in June 2023, when the Supreme Court ruled that race could no longer be considered as a factor in university admissions, reversing decades of affirmative action-based policy.

The ruling also cast the legal standing of corporate DEI policies into uncertainty. When Meta made the internal announcement it was cancelling DEI programmes, the company told staff “the legal and policy landscape” surrounding DEI had changed.

The speed at which some large corporations have shed their DEI policies raises the question of how genuine their commitment to diversifying their workforces was in the first place.

Martin Whittaker, chief executive at JUST Capital, a non-profit that surveys Americans on workplace issues, says much of the backtracking comes from companies who were “rushing to kind of look good” at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement.

But not all are yielding to political and legal pressure. Conservative think-tank the Heritage Foundation noted in a November report that although DEI programmes appear to be trending downwards, “nearly all” Fortune 500 companies still list DEI commitments somewhere on their websites. Apple shareholders recently voted to continue diversity programmes at the company.

Surveys that measure Americans’ support for DEI offer mixed results. JUST Capital’s survey suggests support for DEI has declined, but support for issues closely linked to it – such as fair pay – have not. A 2023 survey from the Pew Research Center suggested most employed adults (56%) believed “focusing on increasing DEI at work is a good thing”.

Much rests on the question of whether DEI is actually effective in the first place.

Some research has suggested that DEI programmes like diversity training can in fact be harmful. According to one study by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Tel Aviv, trainers commonly report hostility and resistance from employees who feel forced to do the training and threatened by what they see as reverse discrimination; it also says the programmes can often leave trainees feeling more hostility towards other groups.

This research has been seized on by DEI’s opponents as part of the evidence that “the best way to improve the lives of all our citizens, and all our neighbours, is to allow the free market to lift all the boats”, as Mr Padfield puts it.

The problem with this kind of thinking, according to Siri Chilazi, a researcher focused on gender equity at Harvard University, is that there is no historical precedent to suggest that racial and gender imbalances will correct themselves. Mrs Chilazi says racial and gender barriers still exist and believes DEI solutions focused on “levelling the playing field for all” are needed.

She cites multiple experiments that show white men disproportionately receive more responses after applying for jobs than women or people of colour. A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research sent identical CVs to roughly 100 of the largest US companies and found that applicants presumed to be white were contacted by employers 9.5% more often than applicants presumed to be black – with one company contacting presumed white applicants 43% more often.

But Mrs Chilazi also says there are genuine issues with many DEI programmes, adding that the most common programmes – including diversity and unconscious bias training and employee resource or affinity groups – are often the least effective. A recent study highlighting the ineffectiveness of some DEI practices said a common issue was treating them as an end goal in themselves, without measurable outcomes.

And when it comes to large corporations donating money towards DEI initiatives – like Walmart’s equity centre – Mrs Chilazi says the problem is that there is not much data to show how effective this is. “This is an area where we actually don’t have good research,” she says.

Where studies have shown DEI to be effective is when it comes to making “small systemic changes”, she says. There is evidence to suggest replacing open-ended questions in performance evaluations with more specific ones, such as “what’s the one biggest accomplishment of this person last year?”, has shown significant reductions in gender and racial evaluation gaps that can affect pay, according to Mrs Chilazi.

Supporters of DEI say the real-world impact of the shift from it can be seen at Harvard University, which was targeted in the landmark Supreme Court case.

Last autumn, Harvard Law School reported having only 19 first-year black students among more than 500 students that enrolled, according to the American Bar Association. That was less than half the number from the previous year – 43 – and the lowest since the 1960s. The law school also saw a significant decline in Hispanic student enrolment, which dropped from 63 to 39 between 2023 and 2024.

Colleges and schools have already begun making adjustments in response to the new climate. At one university, a lunar new year celebration was cancelled; another ended a decades-long forum on race. Elsewhere, social clubs for black and Asian students have been disbanded.

But the ruling’s impact does not appear straightforward. Enrolment numbers for black and Hispanic students at some other top US colleges have actually increased since the Supreme Court’s decision.

For the freshman class that arrived in the autumn, Northwestern University saw an 11% rise in enrolment for black students and a 13% increase for Hispanic students.

Because of results like these, some DEI opponents have accused universities of flouting the court’s ruling.

But another explanation offered for the increase in diversity at some universities is a shift towards “socio-economic inclusion” instead of race and ethnicity – which nonetheless appears to have achieved the same objective.

Dartmouth University’s Hispanic student enrolment jumped from 9.7% to 12.7% last year, after adjusting to make the school “more accessible for low- and middle-income families”, it said in a press release.

It’s clear that the anti-DEI campaigns are having a significant real-world impact. “I think we are in the midst of a big shift,” says Mrs Chilazi.

Michelle Jolivet, author of Is DEI Dead?: The Rebranding of Inclusive Organizations, says she is worried that the anti-DEI movement will lead to progress stalling for historically disadvantaged groups.

“Things that matter are measured, and when you stop measuring them, they stop happening,” she says. “Then you do stop making progress.”

But as to the question at the centre of her book – is DEI dead? – Jolivet says the answer is no.

The companies that appear to have cancelled their DEI programmes are not really eliminating them, she says. Instead, they are just rebranding and reorganising to escape potential lawsuits.

She gave the example of Walmart renaming its chief diversity officer to chief belonging officer. Similarly, McDonald’s gave one of its programmes a facelift, changing the name of its Global DEI Center of Excellence to the Global Inclusion Team.

“DEI has become more of a controversial word,” she says. “If I just take that word out, I can still do the same thing.”

But not everyone is reassured.

Back in the fields of Union County, Elise Ashby looks towards the future with uncertainty. The grant from Walmart gave her access to capital that she argues black-owned businesses often struggle to obtain.

She fears a return to when she “stayed up nights” wondering where the next cheque would come from and facing the kind of obstacles “white men don’t have”.

She says: “Am I concerned about the future? Absolutely.”

Additional reporting by Natalie Sherman

Top image credit: Getty Images

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Many of the stars of Toxic Town had not heard of the scandal the drama is based on, but are hoping the Netflix retelling will bring it into the spotlight.

The show follows the real-life battle of families in Corby, Northamptonshire, whose children were born with defects in the 1980s and 90s.

In court it was argued that toxic airborne pollutants from the town’s demolished steelworks had harmed unborn babies.

Actor Brendan Coyle, who was born in Corby, admitted he had been unaware of the story, but said there was excitement in his hometown to see it told to the world.

“One of the mothers has been in touch… It’s kind of the talk of the town. People are excited about it,” he said.

“For them, the mothers and these children, to have their story told… it’s amazing. It’s something that’s been buried for a long time in terms of people’s perception.”

In the drama, the Downton Abbey star plays Roy Thomas, a fictional Corby borough councillor.

The 62-year-old actor explained that, like many in the town, his family had moved from Scotland to work at the Corby Steelworks, which in 1979, just before its closure, had about 10,000 employees.

“When I was born in Corby, 80% of the population of that town had been born in Scotland,” he said.

“My granny and granddad came down from Bellshill, which is a mining community outside Glasgow. They never lost their accent because you’re in amongst it, you know?”

Members of his family, including his brother, still live and work in the area.

“My brother asked ‘Is there any craic in this?'” he laughed.

“On the surface it’s very bleak… but in the documentary [the Horizon programme on the case] you see the women they talk to and there’s great spirit and humour and great craic.

“I think Jack [Thorne, writer of the drama] has captured that brilliantly.”

For executive producer Annabel Jones, humour was an important part of the storytelling.

She said: “Corby is known for its sense of humour; known for its warmth. I wanted to make sure that comes across through the characters as well, because I want it to feel true to Corby.

“I didn’t want it to feel that people didn’t have a sense of hope at that time.”

The Emmy and Bafta-winning Welsh producer first heard about the scandal while in lockdown during the pandemic.

A friend, from Corby, told her about the case while they were on a masked-up walk in a park.

She recalled: “I was absolutely gobsmacked that, firstly, I have never heard of this story, and secondly, why have I never heard of this story?

“This really needs to be pulled into the public consciousness; we need to be made aware so things like this don’t happen again.”

From that point, the 53-year-old began speaking to as many people involved in the case as possible to ensure their stories were told story accurately.

One of the nuances of the adaptation is the Corby accent, which Coyle compared to a “diluted” Scottish accent.

He said: “It’s an odd one but I can recognise it anywhere. I’ve been on a tube before and been like ‘Are you from Corby?’ There is nothing like it.”

The executive producer added: “It’s such a particular accent because obviously Corby has lots of different influences… We did work with lots of accent coaches to try and perfect it.

“Jodie Whittaker really worked hard. It was probably the thing she was most nervous about. When she met with Susan she very kindly reassured her and told her she’d done a good job.”

Other members of the cast met or emailed the people they played to help craft their performance.

However, this was not an option for Robert Carlyle. The man he portrayed, Corby borough councillor Sam Hagen, died in October 2022, a year before filming began.

To help, the production team sourced hours of video footage in which the real-life politician told his story.

Carlyle, who starred in The Full Monty, said: “He’s got a straight kind of voice; a slightly higher kind of Glasgow man that talks like that… I thought… ‘That just sounds like my dad.’

“I thought ‘There’s elements here of my dad in Sam’ and that was my way in.”

The Trainspotting actor described his character as “a hero with a small h” who “fundamentally wants Corby to succeed”.

Carlyle said: “He was determined to make the best of his life down there to try and regenerate this town. He’s the kind of man who made sure the traffic lights are working correctly and there’s a zebra crossing in the right place.

“He does the right thing. It’s lovely; a lot of my characters aren’t like that. It’s nice to have a chance to play somebody who is inherently good.”

Castmate Rory Kinnear, who played solicitor Des Collins, explained the show never made a judgement on any of the characters, one way or the other

“Everyone believes they’re doing the right thing,” he said.

“It allows an audience to decide whether they think those people did do the right things at the right time for the right reason.”

Kinnear did not speak to the real-life lawyer while preparing for the role.

He said: “The choice of casting me means they were taking it in a slightly different way. I knew they were creating a version of Des in terms of age; in terms of look; in terms of lots of other things”

The real Des Collins, however, thought the Bond actor’s portrayal was very close to the truth: “He got me down to a tee. He was more me than I am,” he said.

“I ended up on a couple of occasions, having seen it, saying ‘Oh, I wish said that’ and then I realised it wasn’t me doing it, it was Rory Kinnear pretending to be me.”

The actor hopes the drama will get people talking. “As the sibling of a disabled person myself, one is well aware that they are not at the forefront of public interest,” he said.

“What excites me about this is, not just the story itself, but the fact Netflix are doing it and it’s a departure for them to do a four-part series like this of this subject matter.

“You could well imagine this being on late on BBC2 or Channel 4, and 250,000 loved it and watched it, but it doesn’t have any impact.

“I think Netflix’s ambition with it is to make sure it’s something everybody watches, talks about and is made aware of.”