Costco shareholders defended DEI hiring against anti-woke attacks and won—for now
With a swath of anti-DEI and other executive orders spilling out of the White House during the first week of Trump’s second term, many companies are likewise changing or rolling back their own DEI programs or policies, including Amazon, Boeing, Lowe’s, McDonald’s, and Meta.
However, one big company’s shareholders are bucking the trend.
Costco’s shareholders rejected a proposal from a conservative think tank on Thursday, which aimed to persuade the world’s third-largest retailer to roll back its DEI hiring practices. It’s a notable rejection, since in the wake of a 2023 Supreme Court decision striking down certain affirmative action programs (which can be somewhat related to DEI efforts), many other large companies already have more or less given in to similar requests or proposals.
This is a sizable win for DEI adherents.
The proposal was floated by the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR), and argued that Costco’s DEI policies were harmful to the company and could open it up to lawsuits. “With 310,000 employees, Costco likely has at least 200,000 employees who are potentially victims of this type of illegal discrimination because they are white, Asian, male or straight,” reads a statement in support of the change, presented to shareholders prior to the vote. “Accordingly, even if only a fraction of those employees were to file suit, and only some of those prove successful, the cost to Costco could be tens of billions of dollars.”
Costco’s board of directors had recommended that shareholders vote against the proposal, and shareholders agreed: The proposal was voted down by 98% of them. However, even with this win for DEI proponents, an uphill battle remains.
One executive order titled, “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” signed by Trump on January 21, 2025, reads: “Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system. Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.”
So while Costco shareholders may have won one significant battle for DEI proponents, the larger war rages on.