61 S&P 100 Companies Remove DEI Board Criteria

Sixty-one S&P 100 companies have removed explicit diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) criteria from their board director selection processes since 2023. A Bloomberg analysis identified several major corporations among those shifting their policies, including Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Starbucks Corp., and Wells Fargo & Co.

The trend follows pressure from the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative activist investor that engaged with firms to remove race, gender, or sexual orientation as explicit requirements in director searches. While many shareholder proposals to strip DEI incentives from executive compensation were defeated at annual meetings, some companies, such as PepsiCo and Mastercard, eliminated those incentives regardless of the vote outcomes.

The National Legal and Policy Center argues that the goal is to eliminate policies that introduce bias. The organization maintains that boards should continue to seek out Black and female candidates but should do so without using explicit criteria or pay incentives that might lead to certain groups receiving less consideration than others.