What the Rollback on DEI Means for Women Small Business Owners

While the media floods us with the legal victory of conservative groups to end diversity, equity, and inclusion policies of corporations, be aware that the ramifications are wide-reaching—including grant programs for underrepresented small business owners. Not only are giants like Walmart, Lowes, Harley Davidson, Ford,  and a myriad of other household brands legally pulling back programs meant to address lack of representation of people of color regarding  recruitment and career, advancement but also the many grant initiatives developed by these giant corporations to boost small business owners of color—including women.

Conservatives, through the law firm Americans First Legal, have won their battle to strike down DEI programs as discriminatory. We have yet to learn the full impact of this movement on business, education, and even healthcare access. However, here is how the rollback is already affecting grant programs formerly (and proudly) administered by business giants in the recent past. Corporations that partner with the popular grant program Hello Alice have pulled their funding, albeit in diverse ways. For instance, Progressive, the car insurance giant and long-time partner of Hello Alice, has dropped the requirements that applicants be Black and Latinx. PepsiCo has changed its grant program for Latinx business owners operating in the food and beverage space to no longer require that applicants be of Hispanic descent at all. And the bank giant UBS has moved the administration of their three-year-old corporate grant program for Black entrepreneurs to a nonprofit that supports Black entrepreneurs rather than come up against discriminatory charges by conservative groups. In effect, UBS got rid of its DEI conundrum.

The National Minority Supplier Diversity Council was ordered by a federal appeals court to shut down its one-year-old Fearless Fund; this council has been highly influential in bringing together corporations and underrepresented small business owners for decades.

How will the rollback on DEI initiatives play out regarding federal and state contracting set-asides? So far, doing business with the government is business as usual. Stay tuned as the new administration takes the reins next month.