'A slap in the face' Workers alarmed at Walmart's retreat on diversity policies

A year after the murder of George Floyd, Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart had a warning for corporate America. The death in 2020 triggered a wave of protest over systemic racism and was "not an isolated event. We have a long history of racism, and we see unacceptable events continue."

- Michael Sainato

A year after the murder of George Floyd, Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, had a warning for corporate America. The death in 2020 triggered a wave of protest over systemic racism and was "not an isolated event. We have a long history of racism, and we see unacceptable events continue."

Walmart and other large US corporations made pledges to address inequities within their business, ones many feared would be dropped once the focus on Floyd's killing faded. "We can't let that be the case," he wrote, outlining how the company was releasing its "diversity metrics twice a year" and calling on companies to "continue to address systemic racism and the structural inequities that are rooted in this nation's history of slavery and that persist today".

Times have changed. Last month Walmart became the latest corporation to cave to a rightwing campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, announcing it would stop using the term DEI altogether, drop DEI trainings, no longer consider race and gender as a means to improve diversity when making offers to suppliers, and would not renew a racial equity center committed to addressing "the root causes of gaps in outcomes experienced by Black and African American people".