Wall Street's big retreat from DEI: Banking giants including Goldman, Bank of America and BNY Mellon slash black-only events for inclusive ones and mull the end of diversity quotas

Major banks are scaling back DEI programs and reconsidering diversity targets amid a conservative backlash and fears they could face 'reverse discrimination' lawsuits.

Financial heavyweights including Bank of America and Goldman Sachs are among institutions which have overhauled inclusivity programs which exclusively focused on women and minorities to now accept people from all backgrounds.

The pattern follows others multinational companies, including Zoom and Tesla, which have also dampened their enthusiasm for diversity, equity and inclusion through measures including cutting DEI departments.

Some of the steps are in response to fierce public criticism of DEI schemes by political leaders and business heavyweights. But institutions also fear lawsuits which claim programs that exclusively benefit minorities are a form of reverse discrimination.

'We're past the peak,' Subha Barry, former head of diversity at Merrill Lynch, told Bloomberg, which analyzed Wall Street's retreat from DEI initiatives.

Campaigns against DEI by finance leaders including Bill Ackman (pictured) have led several Wall Street firms to scale back their diversity projects

Elon Musk has labeled DEI 'just another word for racism'

At Goldman Sachs, changes include opening its 'Possibilities Summit' for black college students to those from all backgrounds.

Bank of America has also opened internal schemes previously targeted at women and minorities to all staff. The bank said it has 'not eliminated any bank-sponsored D&I sponsorship programs'.

Meanwhile, executives at Bank of New York Mellon are reportedly looking at ditching workforce diversity targets after lawyers recommended they are scrapped. The firm is also said to be looking at whether to end bonuses linked to diversity progress.

The percentage of black senior executives at the country's top banks remains far below the population of black people in the United States.

At JPMorgan Chase, about five percent of senior leaders are black. At Goldman Sachs, the figure is 3.7 percent, while at Citigroup it is 8.7 percent. Black people make up around 14 percent of the country's population.

BNY Mellon, JPMorgan and Goldman Sach told Bloomberg that they remain committed to inclusive workplaces with employees from diverse backgrounds. 

Diversity, equity and inclusion programs have increased at American businesses for more than a decade but exploded in popularity following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the nationwide racial justice campaigns which followed.

The rise has led to criticism from politicians right-leaning business leaders who said the programs were discriminatory to white people.

Elon Musk, the Tesla chief and world's richest man, recently labeled DEI 'just another word for racism'.

At Goldman Sachs, changes include opening its 'Possibilities Summit' for black college students to those from all backgrounds

Bank of America has also opened internal schemes previously targeted at women and minorities to all staff. The bank said it has 'not eliminated any bank-sponsored D&I sponsorship programs'

His comments were in response to a campaign by fellow billionaire Bill Ackman, founder of the Pershing Square Capital Management hedge fund, against the movement.

Ackman was a leading critic of former Harvard University president Claudine Gay, who was ousted from her position over widespread outrage at her response to antisemitism at the university.

Ana Duarte McCarthy, former chief diversity officer at Citigroup, told Bloomberg that big business was 'at an interesting inflection point'.

DEI was delivered a blow last year when the Supreme Court overturned the use of affirmative action at colleges and universities, effectively banning institutions from considering applicants' race in the admissions process.

Cinnamon Clark, cofounder of Goodwork Sustainability, a DEI consulting firm, said: 'Companies are really starting to look at other ways to do the work without saying that they're doing the work.'