Paramount Is Rolling Back DEI Initiatives to Comply With Trump Mandates

variety.com:

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Paramount Global — as it seeks FCC approval for its deal with Skydance Media and amid a pending lawsuit filed by President Trump against CBS News — told employees that it will change some of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs to comply with the Trump administration’s directives.

In a memo to employees Wednesday, Paramount co-CEOs George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins, cited the Trump administration’s mandates as requiring “changes in the way the company approaches inclusion moving forward.

As a result, some of our policies must change to comply with these new mandates.” Trump has made the shutdown of DEI initiatives across the federal government a priority, and his administration is applying pressure to thwart such programs in the private sector as well.

Per the Paramount co-CEOs’ memo, obtained by Variety, the company will “longer set or use aspirational numerical goals related to the race, ethnicity, sex or gender of hires.” In addition, it has ended its policy of collecting race, ethnicity, sex or gender data for U.S.