🔗Just out: Do Changes to DEI Policies Affect Corporate Reputation in the US?

Do Changes to DEI Policies Affect Corporate Reputation in the US?

April 7, 2025

By: James Clasper

INTRODUCTION

Upon returning to the White House in January 2025, President Trump swiftly dismantled federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs through executive orders, placing DEI staff on leave and revoking mandates for government contractors.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission signaled a crackdown, suggesting that certain DEI policies might violate federal anti-discrimination laws.

In response, corporate America has taken divergent approaches. Some companies, such as Walmart and Target, have scaled back DEI commitments, while others, including Disney and Apple, continue to uphold them, emphasizing that inclusivity fosters innovation and strengthens business.

This divergence underscores the varying corporate strategies amid evolving political and legal landscapes.

Our report comprises two parts:

Part One: A survey examining attitudes toward these DEI policy shifts among respondents in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The survey, conducted March 10–16, included 1,153 American respondents, 709 German respondents, and 435 British respondents.

Part Two: Data from our Real-Time Tracker assessing the reputational impact on major US companies that have either rolled back or maintained their DEI programs in recent months.

Key takeaway

While Part One reveals that more than a third of US respondents say they now have more trust in companies that have reduced DEI initiatives, Part Two shows these opinions appear not to translate into measurable reputation changes for specific companies.

This suggests a significant gap between how Americans think about DEI policies per se and their perceptions of individual companies that either change or maintain their own policy on DEI.

PART ONE

Q1. Impact on Personal Views About DEI

We asked respondents whether the Trump administration’s policy shift on DEI had affected their own views on the issue.

United States: Americans show the most polarized response, with 37% supporting DEI more and 12% supporting it less, while 37% remain unchanged.

United Kingdom: Displays a moderate change, with 30% increasing support versus 7% decreasing support.

Germany: Shows the most conservative shift, with only 20% increasing support while 13% decreased support.

What’s also interesting is that most people don’t seem to care about this issue. In all three countries, at least half of the respondents — and about two-thirds of those in Europe — either haven’t changed their position or aren’t sure what they think.

Takeaways

Trump’s position on DEI has not significantly converted opposition but has strengthened pre-existing views.
A significant portion of Americans (37%) became more supportive of DEI following Trump’s policy changes, while only 12% moved in the opposite direction.
The US exhibits the most polarized response, while the UK and Germany show more moderate shifts — though most people don’t care about this issue.

Q2. Trust in Companies Reducing Their DEI Policies

We asked respondents whether the recent decisions by several major companies to reduce their DEI focus impacted their trust in those companies.

More than a third (36%) of US respondents trust these companies more, compared to just a quarter of German and British respondents (23–24%).
The US shows the strongest correlation between the political climate and DEI attitudes, with 60% of respondents shifting their views based on the Trump administration’s stance (compared to 44–47% in Germany and the UK).

Q3. Impact on Consumer Behavior

We asked whether a company’s decision to reduce its DEI initiatives impacted consumer purchasing behavior.

Americans demonstrate the strongest response, with 35% more likely to buy from such companies—compared with 26% of British respondents and 20% of Germans.
The polarization from earlier questions extends to consumer behavior, as 24% of Americans would reduce purchases from these companies.

Demographic deep-dive

The sex divide

In both the US and Germany, men are more likely than women to support DEI practices more, and in all three countries women are much more unsure what to think of this issue.

Q1 - SEX DIVIDE - GERMANYQ1 - SEX DIVIDE - UK

Men in all three countries trust companies that reduce their DEI initiatives more — but the gender gap is starkest in the US (22 percentage points).

Likewise, men in all three countries are more likely to buy products and services from companies that scale back their DEI initiatives — and the gender gap in the US is 21 percentage points.

The political divide

Predictably, perhaps, there are stark differences between the views of Democratic and Republican respondents. The former overwhelmingly say they support DEI practices more today.

Even more strikingly, Democrats say they trust companies that scale back their DEI initiatives a lot less than Republicans (36% v. 7%).

And they say they’re less likely to buy products or services from those companies.

Takeaways

The US shows the most pronounced political and sex-based differences across all metrics, suggesting DEI issues may be much more polarized there than in Europe.

Conclusions from Part One

DEI has evolved into a value-signaling mechanism, dividing consumers rather than serving as a universally positive corporate attribute.

Companies should tailor DEI strategies by region, as the US market exhibits more extreme reactions than the UK and Germany.

Transparent communication about DEI policy changes is key, as companies risk reputational damage from both sides of the debate.

PART TWO

Analysis of Corporate Trust & Like Scores (TLS)

The following data is taken from our Real-Time Tracker platform and shows the Trust & Like Score — our chief metric of reputation — over the past four months for 10 major US companies that have either rolled back or defended their DEI programs.

Trust & Like Score Development of companies that have abandoned or rolled back DEI

Trust & Like Score Development of Companies that have publicly defended DEI

The graph above shows that some companies saw a change to their Trust & Like Score, potentially related to their public stance on DEI. For example, Apple saw its TLS rise eight points (from 67 to 75) in February, the month its shareholders voted to maintain the company’s DEI policy. Amazon and Meta, which both scaled back their diversity programmes in January, saw their TLS fall in February.

However, the following table shows the quarterly changes in TLS for these nine companies, as well as Ford, which retreated further on its DEI policy in February. The table shows that, despite the month-to-month changes in TLS, the average score for Q1 2025 is essentially identical to the average score for Q4 2024. In other words, either changing or maintaining a corporate DEI policy appears to have had no reputational impact in this longer timeframe.

Trust & Like Score of Companies that have abandoned or rolled back DEI

Trust & Like Score of Companies that have publicly defended DEI

Takeaways

Most companies that rolled back DEI programs saw little or no change to their TLS, and only Ford saw a clear quarterly decline.

Companies that maintained DEI policies saw mixed results, with only Apple enjoying an apparent TLS boost – which soon returned to previous levels – while neither Microsoft nor JPMorgan Chase saw a TLS change.

Conclusions

There appears to be a gap between how Americans think about DEI policies per se and their perceptions of individual companies.

The business case for or against DEI remains unresolved, as no company in our study saw a sustained reputational gain or loss solely due to DEI policy changes.

Companies should prepare for consumer polarization, particularly in the US, and adopt localized communication strategies.

In short, our data suggests that while DEI policies remain a potential reputational issue, their impact on consumer trust and behavior is largely shaped by pre-existing political attitudes rather than corporate actions themselves.