Facebook and Instagram owner Meta canceled its diversity, equity and inclusion programs, the latest in a series of political maneuvers CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made to align his social media company with President-elect Donald Trump's administration and the MAGA anti-"woke" movement.

Meta said the sweeping policy shift was the result of the changing legal landscape for DEI, according to an employee memo first obtained by Axios.

"The Supreme Court of the United States has recently made decisions signaling a shift in how courts will approach DEI,” Janelle Gale, vice president of human resources, wrote. “The term 'DEI' has also become charged, in part because it is understood by some as a practice that suggests preferential treatment of some groups over others."

Meta will no longer have representation goals based on race or gender and will not require a diverse pool of candidates when hiring, Gale said.

Instead Meta will focus on programs that "apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background," according to Gale. 

Meta is also shuttering its supplier diversity programs. The company’s chief diversity officer, Maxine Williams, will take on a new role inside Meta.

The moves come just days after Zuckerberg announced that Meta would turn over content moderation to users and loosen restrictions on hate speech on his company's platforms.

DEI backtracks ahead of second Trump term

Meta joins a growing list of major companies to backtrack on DEI commitments made after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 forced a historic reckoning with race in America, including McDonald’s, Walmart and Ford that have walked back some DEI policies and programs.

Amazon.com is also "winding down outdated programs and materials" related to representation and inclusion, aiming to complete the process by the end of 2024, it said in a December memo to employees seen by Reuters on Friday.

DEI critics allege that women and people of color are being handed jobs and promotions at the expense of more qualified and deserving candidates.

On the campaign trail, Trump, a vocal DEI critic, promoted the idea that white Americans were targets of racism and made reversing President Joe Biden’s “woke takeover” of Washington a priority of his second term in office.

Proponents say DEI programs are critical to level the playing field for people of color and women. JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and other business leaders have repeatedly stressed that diversity is good for business.

Employees of color are underrepresented at every level of power in corporate America, according to USA TODAY data investigations. One analysis in 2023 found that white men account for 7 in 10 executive officers in the nation’s largest companies. About 1 in 7 of these companies had executive teams made up only of white men.

Zuckerberg makes pro-Trump changes

With Republicans back in control of both chambers of Congress and calling for new regulation of Big Tech, Zuckerberg has publicly signaled the Trump administration in other ways. 

He named Trump ally and UFC boss Dana White to Meta’s board of directors and elevated prominent Republican Joel Kaplan to lead the company’s global affairs operation. Meta also pledged a $1 million donation to Trump's inauguration.

Kaplan told Fox News Digital that Meta that sees "opportunities for partnership" with the Trump administration in "promoting American business and America’s technological edge."

"This is ultimately about doing what’s best for our company and ensuring that we are serving everyone and building teams with the most talented people," Kaplan said of the company's decision to cancel DEI. "This means evaluating people as individuals, and sourcing people from a range of candidate pools, but never making hiring decisions based on protected characteristics like race or gender."

Diversity advocates pushed back against Meta's position.

"Every time a company shutters DEI programs because they're shifting away from initiatives that emphasize 'preferential treatment' towards those that focus on 'fairness and objectivity for everyone,' I am baffled as to why that's not what they were doing from the start," Joelle Emerson, co-founder and CEO of diversity strategy and consulting firm Paradigm, wrote on LinkedIn. "Whatever we want to call it, building healthy, inclusive cultures is fundamentally about building cultures that are fair for everyone. Of course, to do that, we have to ask 'for whom is our culture NOT fair today?'"

Meta civil rights VP Roy Austin resigns

Late Friday, Roy Austin, Meta's vice president of civil rights and deputy general counsel, announced his resignation on LinkedIn. Austin, a civil rights attorney who focused on policing in the Obama administration, joined the company in 2021 to help the social media giant curb racial hatred and violence on its platforms.

His hiring was a key recommendation of an internal civil rights audit. The audit faulted Meta for failing to remove divisive rhetoric and false claims made by then-President Donald Trump.

“The prioritization of free expression over all other values, such as equality and non-discrimination, is deeply troubling,” civil rights activist Laura Murphy wrote in the audit, which began in 2018 at the urging of civil rights organizations and some members of Congress.

Austin's departure note said members of his civil rights team would continue their work in different organizations inside Meta, suggesting the team is being disbanded.

Meta could not be immediately reached for comment.

Contributing: Reuters

(This story has been updated to add new information.)