Commentary: Despite Trump's pressure, companies that maintained their DEI programs did just fine

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Set us as preferred Whether you love DEI, despise it or view it with uninterest, there’s no question that President Trump’s relentless assault on the principle threw a ticking bomb into the upper echelons of corporate and institutional managements.Businesses, universities, law firms and nonprofits felt themselves bound to consider how bucking Trump’s anti-DEI policies might translate into lost revenues, contracts and government grants.Many decided that capitulation was the safe choice.

Now there’s evidence that many need not have worried.According to researchers at UC Berkeley and Stanford, firms that maintained their diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the face of the Trump attacks paid no financial price.

Was getting rid of DEI actually a business necessity? The data says no.— Grumbach and FolszSpecifically, wrote Jacob Grumbach, an associate professor of public policy at Berkeley, and Hanna Folsz, a graduate student at Stanford, “S&P 500 firms that maintained their DEI programs performed just as well as compliant firms, both in terms of stock market returns and revenue.”The initial trigger for institutional concerns about their DEI efforts was an executive order Trump issued on his Jan.20, 2026, inauguration day.

Titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful DEI Programs and Preferencing,” it ordered all federal agencies to terminate all their DEI programs.The next day, he instructed the Department of Justice to take steps to “encourage” the private sector to “end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.” Commentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize winner.

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