Amid calls for racial justice in 2020, Hollywood pledged to do better.

Studios and entertainment companies committed to donating millions of dollars to civil rights and anti-racist organizations, established in-house talent development programs to nurture underrepresented creatives and instituted new requirements for diverse hiring and inclusive business practices.

But over the last few weeks, media companies have retreated from those promises.

Walt Disney Co. is changing some of its internal DEI policies, including swapping out a "diversity and inclusion" performance standard used to calculate executive compensation. Meanwhile Warner Bros. Discovery told employees that its DEI program would now just be called "Inclusion," and Paramount Global dropped staffing goals related to gender, race, ethnicity and sex.

The moves came shortly after the Trump administration issued an executive order targeting DEI programs in the private sector. He called on the U.S. attorney general to identify up to nine "potential civil compliance investigations" of publicly traded companies, large nonprofits or foundations with at least $500 million in assets.

Executives often talk about how important diversity is for business. But the industry's progress on inclusivity has come in fits and starts.

A recent UCLA report on diversity in Hollywood found that people of color were underrepresented in every major industry employment category last year, including theatrical film leads, directors, writers and actors. Though the racial and ethnic diversity of top film casts slowly increased over the 14 years that the report has charted this data, it backslid in 2024.

Many in Hollywood have said diversity programs were not a perfect solution and should not have been viewed as the end-all-be-all to the industry's problems. But now that these goals are fading into the background or being eliminated all together, some are concerned about how to ensure progress continues.

And in the meantime, audiences still want diverse stories and will show up to authentic movies they feel represent them, said Jeremiah Abraham, chief executive of multicultural marketing and communications firm Tremendous.

"We've seen people vote with buying tickets and voting with how many times they've seen films," he said. "But without these systemic DEI efforts, the path of getting those stories will probably be harder."

The retrenchment on diversity was happening even before President Trump took office, experts and insiders say.

Financial losses from the pandemic, the dual writers and actors strikes in 2023 and overspending during the so-called streaming wars meant that companies were already looking for ways to cut costs.

"When the industry contracts, diversity is the first thing to go because it's not seen as essential," said Ana-Christina Ramón, director of the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative at UCLA. "The return to the status quo can easily happen in a situation where there's a disruption to the industry."

There have often been pullbacks in diversity programs, said Karen Horne, a former executive at Warner Bros. who oversaw DEI efforts.

"This is a pendulum that has swung back and forth," she said. "A lot of companies are still doing the work, they're just not being as loud about it. They're just doing it quietly."

Media companies have also been under pressure from conservative groups because of diverse or inclusive content that they call "woke."

Disney sparred with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after the company raised objections to anti-LGBTQ+ state legislation. More recently, the company removed a trans athlete storyline from its Pixar animated series "Win or Lose," saying at the time that "many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline."

Over the last two years, the entertainment industry has shed thousands of jobs. During that same time, there's also been a decrease in the number of U.S.-based positions at Hollywood studios that explicitly mention DEI concepts in their job titles, according to an analysis by workforce data firm Revelio Labs.

The reduction of DEI roles in the industry at large outpaced the general decrease in employment, Revelio Labs found by charting jobs at Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Universal Studios and Amazon Studios.

Studios either declined to comment or did not respond to a request for comment.

That trend extended to the highest ranks of DEI positions. In 2023, high-profile exits of several media companies' diversity chiefs renewed doubts about Hollywood's commitment to these ideals — and whether these positions were ever structured in a way to produce real change.

"Particularly in 2020, jobs were hired, but there wasn't any clarity or success measures given to these leaders," said Jeanell English, founder and chief executive of consulting firm Elizabeth and former executive vice president of impact and inclusion at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "There is an opportunity for individuals in these roles ... [but] it requires a true, honest conversation about what that role means in an organization today, and what success looks like for them."

Shaun Harper, founder and chief research scientist at the USC Race and Equity Center, remembers the summer of 2020 when his phone was ringing "off the hook" with questions from executives in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis police officer.

In the last two to three years, he's gotten fewer calls.

"What we're seeing in Hollywood is a sign of the times," said Harper, who has worked with and advised studios and entertainment companies on DEI programs. "It disappoints me, for sure, but it doesn't surprise me."

Hollywood isn't alone in its pullback from DEI programs. Retailers such as Target, Walmart and Lowe's have all said they would end or cut back on diversity initiatives, many of which were put into place just a few years ago. Some major tech companies, including Facebook parent firm Meta, Google and Amazon, are also scaling back.

As studios sunset certain initiatives, some fear that the already-slim opportunities for people of color could decrease, compounded by the ongoing production slowdown in Los Angeles due to industry contraction and runaway production. That could lead to people leaving the business, or perhaps going toward new platforms for distribution, including social media.

"Being a filmmaker, you're trying to impress Hollywood," said Maris Lidaka, founder of the Blended Future Project, a media company that focuses on multiracial stories. "But maybe this is the wake-up call we need that we can't keep trying to impress them anymore. The goal posts keep changing."

But while these programs and jobs were an "instigator of necessary change," they were never meant to be the complete solution to the industry's diversity problem, English said.

"The seeds have already been planted," she said. "It's our job now, as a community in entertainment, to make sure that they grow and that they thrive."

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