Meta DEI programs are canceled. Read the memo

Meta on Friday told employees that he planned to end the series internal programs designed to increase the company’s recruitment of diverse candidates, the latter sudden changes ahead of the president-elect Donald Trumpthe second The term of the White House.

Janelle Gale, Meta’s vice president of human resources, made the announcement at the company’s Workplace Internal Communications Forum.

Among the changes, Meta discontinues “A diverse slate approach” considering qualified candidates from underrepresented groups for its open roles. The company is also discontinuing its supplier diversity program and equity and inclusion training programs.

Gale also announced the disbandment of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, team and said that Meta’s chief diversity officer Maxine Williams will move into a new role focused on accessibility and engagement.

Several Meta employees responded to Gale’s post with comments criticizing the new policy.

“If you don’t stick to your principles, when things get tough, those are not values. It’s a hobby,” wrote one employee in a comment that was responded to by more than 600 colleagues.

DEI’s policy change follows a series of dramatic policy changes the company made on social media this month. Last week, Meta replaced head of global affairs Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan, a campaign veteran with longtime ties to the Republican Party. on tuesday Mark Zuckerberg announced a new speech policy this included ending the company’s third-party fact-checking program.

Axios was the first the report DEI changes in social media campaigns. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Below is the full internal memo from Gale, obtained by CNBC.

hello everyone

I would like to share some of the changes we are making to our hiring, development and procurement practices. Before we get into the details, some important information needs to be laid out:

The legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing. Recently, the United States Supreme Court issued decisions that signal a change in the courts’ approach to DEI. It reaffirms longstanding principles that discrimination based on inherent characteristics should not be permitted or encouraged. The term “DEI” has also come under fire, in part because some understand it as a practice that favors some groups over others.

At Meta, we are committed to serving everyone. This can be achieved through cognitively diverse teams, with differences in knowledge, skills, political views, backgrounds, perspectives and experiences. Such teams are better able to innovate, solve complex problems and discover new opportunities, which ultimately helps us realize our ambition to create products that serve everyone. On top of that, we’ve always believed that no one should be given—or denied—opportunities because of protective features, and that hasn’t changed.

Given the changing legal and political situation, we are making the following changes:

• We will continue to look for candidates from different walks of life when hiring, but we will stop using a diversity approach. This practice has always been the subject of public debate and is currently contested. We believe there are other ways to build an industry-leading workforce and leverage teams of world-class people with diverse backgrounds to create products that work for everyone.

• We have previously stopped representation targets for women and ethnic minorities. Having targets can create the impression that decisions are made based on race or gender. While this has never been our practice, we want to dispel any impression that this is the case.

• We are ending our supplier diversity efforts as part of our broader supplier strategy. These efforts focused on sourcing from a variety of businesses; going forward, we will focus our efforts on supporting small and medium-sized businesses, which provide the majority of our economy. Opportunities will continue to be available to all qualified suppliers, including those participating in the Supplier Diversity Program.

• Instead of equity and inclusion curricula, we will create programs focused on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for everyone, regardless of your background.

• We will no longer have a DEI focused team. Maxine Williams is taking on a new role at Meta focused on accessibility and engagement.

What has remained unchanged are the principles that have guided us in our work with people:

1. We serve everyone. We strive to make our products accessible, useful and universally effective for everyone.
2. We build the best teams from the most talented people. This means seeking people from diverse candidate pools, but never making hiring decisions based on protected characteristics (such as race, gender, etc.). We will always value people as individuals.
3. We strive for consistency in our hiring practices to ensure fairness and objectivity for all. We do not give preferential treatment, additional opportunities or undue credit to anyone based on protected characteristics. Nor will we discount impact based on these characteristics.
4. We build connection and community. We support the communities of our employees, the people who use our products, and those in the communities. We run our Employee Community Groups (MRGs) which are still open to everyone.

Meta is privileged to serve billions of people every day. It’s important to us that our products are accessible to everyone and useful to promote economic growth and opportunity around the world. We remain focused on serving everyone and building a diverse, talented, industry-leading workforce from all walks of life.

WATCH: Meta goes back to the tradition of free speech, says former Facebook chief privacy officer Chris Kelly