Mark Zuckerberg’s Charity Axes DEI Despite Previous Assurances

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, announced it will end its commitment to DEI, according to The Guardian.

Executives at CZI told staff workers on Tuesday evening that it would end its internal and external DEI efforts, as stated in an internal email and other messages. The announcement came despite Zuckerberg’s recent assurances that the for-profit charity organization’s longstanding support for DEI remained unchanged.

“Given the shifting regulatory and legal landscape, we will no longer have a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility team at CZI,” Marc Malandro, CZI’s chief operating officer, said in the email to all staff workers.

What changes are CZI making to DEI?

The company has scaled back its Diverse Slate Practice, an initative created to ensure eligible candidates from diverse backgrounds were interviewed for all open roles at the charity. Additionally, CZI cut its “social advocacy funding,” which includes work and grants focused on immigration reform and racial equity. Instead, it will focus on grants related to “biology and AI,” Malandro said in his email.

The company has also begun layoffs within its community team, which focuses on affordable housing and “economic inclusion,” and transferred other team members to other parts of the organization.

Outside of structural changes, CZI has removed DEI language from its website. A previous page committed to CZI’s DEI work that spotlighted its staff workers and diverse backgrounds no longer exists. Another page formerly stated that the foundation concentrated most of its work through “a diversity, equity, and inclusion lens” that phrase has now been removed.

What changes has Meta recently made?

Janelle Gale, vice president of human resources, said Meta was pivoting away from DEI as the “legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing,” on Friday, 11 January.

The announcement came just days after the company discontinued its fact-checking system in favor of a community notes model like that seen on X. Meta’s DEI team will move away from focusing on diversity and inclusion. Instead, Maxine Williams, the company’s chief diversity officer’s role, will focus on accessibility and engagement.

Image: Reuters/Beck Diefenbach