Paramount, the parent company of BET, MTV and the Paramount film studio, on Wednesday said it was rethinking its approach to diversity, equity and inclusion amid a broader backlash toward D.E.I. policies driven by the Trump administration.
In a note to employees obtained by The New York Times, Paramount’s co-chief executives said that they were making changes to the company’s D.E.I. policies to conform to efforts by the Trump administration to eliminate diversity programs in the federal government and the private sector.
Paramount is ending its practices of using aspirational hiring goals related to race, ethnicity sex or gender, said the memo, sent by co-chief executives Brian Robbins, George Cheeks and Chris McCarthy. The company will also stop collecting gender and diversity data for many U.S. job applicants and eliminate the D.E.I. component of its employee incentive plan.
“With our business objectives firmly in mind, we will continue to evaluate our programs and approach to ensure that we are widening our aperture to attract talent from all geographies, backgrounds and perspectives,” the memo said. “That may mean expanding existing programs while ending others.”
Paramount’s pronouncement on Wednesday makes it the latest company to rethink its approach to D.E.I. since President Trump took office. Major companies including Target, Walmart, Meta and Disney have made similar changes to their diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Paramount has a multibillion-dollar merger pending review by the Federal Communications Commission, whose commissioner, Brendan Carr, has been critical of D.E.I. policies. Mr. Carr said in a letter to Comcast earlier this month that he was investigating such policies at the cable giant with an eye toward eliminating “invidious forms of discrimination” across the media sector.
Paramount has already begun scrubbing examples of D.E.I. from its public-facing statements. Its D.E.I. page, with the header “Global Inclusion,” no longer includes any mention of that initialism, and the company is eliminating the phrase from its annual financial filing. An archived version of Paramount’s D.E.I. website from last May underscores the extent of the company’s about-face.
“We embed D.E.I. into every aspect of our employee experience,” the page read. “Including specific programs to strengthen how we attract, develop, retain, and measure our progress.”
