AT&T has assured the government it won't pursue DEI. This information comes from a letter the firm dispatched to Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr on December 1st.
The move, which follows in the footsteps of Verizon, T-Mobile, and Skydance, comes as AT&T seeks FCC approval for a $23 billion acquisition from broadband provider EchoStar. Carr has threatened prosecutions and opened investigations into companies over DEI, and praised others for abandoning their practices.
“We have closely followed the recent Executive Orders, Supreme Court rulings, and guidance issued by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and have adjusted our employment and business practices,” the letter reads.
In their correspondence, AT&T stated that they currently do not, nor will they, maintain a DEI team. The company indicated that DEI is not a component of AT&T's structure, “not just in name but in substance,” and the organization “does not and will not have any roles focused on DEI.”
The firm mirrored phrasing employed by The Trump administration, referencing “merit-based” and “invidious DEI,” within its four-page correspondence, yet it doesn't seem that AT&T is introducing novel alterations, such as discontinuing current initiatives. Rather, it indicated that initiatives “are and will continue to be open to all, consistent with Title VII [of the Civil Rights Act of 1964].”
“AT&T’s reversal isn’t a sudden transformation of values, but a strategic financial play to curry favor with this FCC/Administration,” Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the FCC, said on X in response to the letter. “Companies should remember that abandoning fairness and inclusion for short-term gain will be a stain to their reputation long into the future.”
AT&T rebranded its DEI programming in 2024 and made changes earlier this year, seemingly after pressure from conservative activist Robby Starbuck, including abandoning much of its support for the LGBTQ+ community and ending participation in external benchmarking indexes.
AT&T continues to support certain programs commonly linked to DEI, including its employee resource groups (ERGs), which have been a fixture at the organization for more than five decades.
“Our letter reaffirms our longstanding practices of hiring and promoting based on merit, supporting an engaged workforce, and meeting our business objectives to serve customers nationwide,” Rebecca Acuña, a spokesperson for AT&T, told HR Brew in an emailed statement.
AT&T’s letter echoes promises that Verizon made to Carr in May, including that it would sunset most of its DEI programs, dissolve its DEI team, and suspend DEI training, HR Brew reported previously.
At that moment, David Glasgow, who serves as the executive director for New York University’s Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging and is also a co-author of the upcoming publication, How Equality Wins, foresaw that the national administration would not permit businesses to merely change their names.
“The less optimistic view is that this administration is on an absolute tear on this topic, and will keep grinding away to root out anything that is about promoting fairness and equal opportunity in the workplace, unless it is just old-school discrimination law compliance,” Glasgow told HR Brew.
Glasgow commented that it's not unexpected for businesses to alter their strategies in response to official mandates. “Just the vague threat of an executive order tossing around the term ‘illegal DEI’ is making a lot of companies scared to continue with it. So unfortunately, I do think we’ll probably see more.”
This report was originally published by HR Brew.
