Verizon’s DEI deal with Trump administration could be a sign of what’s to come

Verizon agreed to end its DEI programming last week to win approval of a deal with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in a move that signals what the Trump administration may want from private businesses.

Background. In September 2024, Verizon announced it planned to acquire Frontier Communications in an all-cash deal valued at $20 billion, with the expectation to close following regulatory approval.

Telecommunications giant Verizon, which has around 100,000 employees, agreed to disband its DEI team and programming in response to a February communication from the FCC “raising concerns with Verizon’s DEI practices,” according to a May 15 letter from Vandana Venkatesh, EVP and chief legal officer of Verizon, to Brendan Carr, the current FCC chair.

The FCC approved the acquisition on May 16, the following day.

In the May 15 letter to Chairman Carr, Venkatesh said that Verizon would end much of its DEI-related programming. Its DEI team will now be reassigned to “focus on HR talent objectives.” Verizon also vowed to end DEI training, and corporate sponsorships and memberships will focus solely on “business objectives” moving forward.

Among numerous other changes, Verizon will no longer participate in external benchmarking indexes, even though it previously partnered with the Human Rights Campaign and was named a best place to work by Disability:IN. It also ended DEI-related compensation metrics, eliminated workforce goals, and agreed to remove all references to DEI from recruitment and marketing materials.

What’s left, according to Verizon, is a commitment to an “inclusive” workplace, but it’s unclear what that will mean.

“This is the million-dollar question, because DEI is such a broad umbrella term, and people mean it to refer to a million different things.” David Glasgow, a lawyer and executive director at New York University’s Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, told HR Brew. “I’m curious about this distinction that Verizon is drawing between DEI, which it says it’s no longer going to do, and, having an inclusive culture and promoting equal employment opportunity, because my view is that’s what DEI is.”

For now, it appears that at least some of Verizon’s DEI programming, including its employee resource groups (ERGs) and commitment to supporting the LGBTQ+ community, remain.

The company’s changes deviate from less than five years ago, when Verizon pledged $10 million to civil rights organizations, and established a Race and Social Justice Action Plan.

Verizon also recently scrubbed its previous statements supporting DEI from its website, according to Popular Information.

Verizon did not respond to requests for comment.

A signal of what’s ahead? There have been several companies that appear to have struck DEI-related deals with the Trump administration since January, and Glasgow believes more will follow.

In April, several law firms agreed to walk back their DEI programming in an agreement with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), after the agency threatened to investigate them, HR Brew previously reported.

“It doesn’t shock me that they’re doing this, because we’re already seeing companies do that even without threats,” Glasgow said. “Just the vague threat of an executive order tossing around the term ‘illegal DEI’ is making a lot of companies scared to continue with it. So unfortunately, I do think we’ll probably see more.”

Glasgow noted that while many companies have made substantive changes to their DEI programming since Trump was reelected, others are engaging in “diversity hushing.” So while publicly it may appear the company has rolled back its DEI approach or changed the terminology, the programs and practices remain the same.

“It really depends from company to company, and it’s because they’re all having different risk assessments about how far do we have to actually shift in order to keep ourselves safe in this moment,” he said.

Glasgow said, “If [companies] get rid of so-called preferences and maybe they rebrand what they’re doing and call it ‘equal opportunity’ and stop using the word ‘DEI,’ will that be enough to satisfy the administration?” That could be the best-case scenario, he added, “In which case, there’s a ton of DEI work that’s still going to be carrying on, and maybe we can all just move on with our lives.”

However, there’s another scenario where companies are still under a microscope, and conservative activist Robby Starbuck has threatened to go after companies that engage in diversity hushing. “The less optimistic view is that this administration is on an absolute tear on this topic, and will keep grinding away to root out anything that is about promoting fairness and equal opportunity in the workplace, unless it is just old-school discrimination law compliance,” Glasgow said.

“It remains to be seen.”

You can stay up to speed on the latest changes to company programs with HR Brew’s DEI evolution tracker here.