The plane maker’s DEI staff have reportedly been reassigned to new positions amid a major workforce overhaul
Boeing has reportedly dismantled its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) department and the vice president in charge has resigned, as the struggling company moves forward with a major restructuring, Bloomberg reported on Thursday.
DEI refers to measures aimed at ensuring equal representation for people of every race, gender, or disability status.
Boeing, whose workforce has historically been predominantly white and male, had previously pledged to hire more people from minority groups and increase overall Black employment by 20% before 2025.
According to Bloomberg’s sources, the company’s diversity staff is now set to be reassigned to new positions. Sara Lian Bowen, one of Boeing’s vice presidents who led the DEI department, has also left the company.
The dismantling of Boeing’s DEI team comes as major corporations across the US face scrutiny over what critics have described as “woke” discriminatory hiring practices directed against white men.
Last month, anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck, who has pressured Toyota and Harley-Davidson to scale back their diversity programs, said he had reached out to Boeing’s new CEO Kelly Ortberg, warning her he was considering an online campaign against the aircraft maker’s DEI initiatives.
In response, Boeing maintained that it was committed to creating an “inclusive environment” while prohibiting discriminatory hiring practices and maintaining a “merit-based performance system” aimed at “equality of opportunity, not of outcomes.”
Ortberg has launched a major overhaul of Boeing’s operations in an effort to cut huge financial losses. The embattled aviation giant has been under fire in recent years due to flaws discovered in its aircraft, leading to safety concerns and investigations. It has also been facing a prolonged worker’s strike over insufficient wage increases.
The restructuring has included trimming the company’s executive ranks as part of a broader effort to reduce the workforce by about 10%, or roughly 17,000 positions.
“Our business is in a difficult position, and it is hard to overstate the challenges we face together,” Ortberg told employees in a memo last month. “Restoring our company requires tough decisions and we will have to make structural changes to ensure we can stay competitive and deliver for our customers over the long term,” she added.