Tom Warren, The Verge:

Microsoft has been publishing data about the gender, race, and ethnic breakdown of its employees for more than a decade. Since 2019 it’s been publishing a full diversity and inclusion report annually, and at the same time made reporting on diversity a requirement for employee performance reviews.

Now it’s scrapping its diversity report and dropping diversity and inclusion as a companywide core priority for performance reviews, just months after President Donald Trump issued an executive order to try and eradicate workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

This won’t come as a surprise. Microsoft cut a major diversity team last year, and ongoing pressure from the Trump regime gives these companies all the cover they need to kill programs they never truly cared about. As I wrote last summer:

It was always just lip service. Companies never really bought into the progressive ideals. They just wanted to shut up Black folk.

Warren again:

Microsoft employees always had to answer “What impact did your actions have in contributing to a more diverse and inclusive Microsoft?” and “What impact did your actions have in contributing to a more secure Microsoft?” Both of these questions have been removed, replaced with a simplified form that asks employees to reflect on the results they delivered and how they achieved them, and any recent setbacks and goals for the future.

I doubt the diversity question mattered; most people likely had little useful to say. Apple added similar questions about diversity impact to its employee self-reviews a few years back (they’re still there, I’m told). I was always tempted to answer “How did you contribute to Apple’s diversity efforts?” by writing I exist—as the only Black engineering manager in the organization—but I resisted.

(Fortunately, co-chairing Black@Apple, recruiting and hiring female and Black engineers, and mentoring hundreds of employees gave me plenty to write about.)