Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has quietly dismantled much of its public DEI information over the past several months.
What’s happening? With roughly 138,000 employees worldwide, J&J made a $100 million diversity pledge in 2020, but like many corporations that were previously committed to DEI, it appears to have backtracked. In April, J&J deleted its DEI landing page, and scrubbed several other indicators of the company’s diversity and health equality efforts.
The page, which stated, “Johnson & Johnson is an innovation-based company, and diversity is at the root of innovation,” now redirects visitors to a watered-down Inclusion landing site.
J&J also appears to have rebranded its employee resource groups (ERGs) to “employee business resource groups” earlier this year, removing language about wellness, hiring diverse talent, and employee leadership opportunities.
Although J&J announced its DEI Maturity Model Assessment Tool in 2023, the information for that tool has also been removed from the website, and it’s unclear if the tool is still in use. The method examined 20 dimensions of DEI to help the company build tailored programs for each country where it operates.
The diverse health workforce section of its Global Health Equity site also appears to be gone; it previously linked to now-deleted blog posts about diversity in healthcare. While J&J formerly advocated for closing the racial health equity gap, which it had invested almost $38 million to help address, that information also no longer appears on the site, and it’s unclear if those efforts will continue.
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Wanda Hope, who has served as the company’s chief diversity officer for the last 10 years, announced her departure earlier this year, and J&J has not publicly named a successor.
Despite the apparent changes to its website and personnel, J&J seems to be sticking to its Access Ability hiring initiative, which focuses on recruitment and retention of disabled talent. Similarly, IBM and Deloitte deleted the majority of their DEI messaging in the last few months while leaving disability initiatives untouched.
Quick turnaround. The Department of Justice, EEOC, and President Trump have all threatened to investigate and target DEI programs, but haven’t specified what type of initiatives count as DEI.
More than 40 companies, including UnitedHealthcare Group, Target, and Meta have changed policies that had been in place for years, HR Brew previously reported, continuing a corporate trend that has accelerated since the 2023 Supreme Court decision that abolished affirmative action in university admissions.
Just seven months ago, J&J told its 9.3 million LinkedIn followers that “DEI is a business imperative and critical to building a culture of inclusion where everyone feels heard, valued and respected—and it’s working.” Between 2022 and 2023, J&J placed on several workplace diversity “best of” lists, including the Human Rights Campaign, Disability:IN, and FKi Diversity for Success.
J&J did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.