Trump’s war on ‘woke’: Both sides say the issue is further dividing the country

(WASHINGTON) -- In a speech to a joint session of Congress in March, President Donald Trump took direct aim at diversity, equity and inclusion policies, saying hiring and promotion practices should be based on merit, not race and gender.

"We've ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military. And our country will be 'woke' no longer," said Trump, using the term some conservatives have adopted to negatively describe progressive values.

In the first 100 days of his new administration, Trump has wielded the power of the Oval Office in an attempt to root out DEI programs beyond the federal government, threatening to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding and grants from universities, including Harvard University, unless they fall in line.

A new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released on Sunday indicated that the country is almost evenly split on the issue. While 51% of respondents said they believe DEI efforts help level the playing field, 47% said such policies create unfair discrimination.

Despite the president's claim that DEI in America is history, supporters say Trump's war against what they refer to as "wokeism" is far from over.

"It's definitely not over. And those of us who want to see corporate America get back to neutral and focusing on uniting Americans around creating value rather than dividing us on the basis of race and sex, we have a long, long way to go," said Stefan Padfield, executive director of the Free Enterprise Project, which is part of National Center for Public Policy Research, a non-partisan conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.

Padfield said one of his primary focuses is on "reversing what we might refer to as the woke capture of corporate America" by filing shareholder proposals, engaging in litigation and conducting educational research across the nation."

"One of the things that I and others on our side are concerned about is this idea and this notion that somehow we've won," Padfield told ABC News.

Using the analogy of the Allied troops storming the beach at Normandy during the 1944 D-Day invasion, Padfield said, "Could you imagine if the Allied forces just packed up and left and claimed to have won World War II after they took Normandy beach? It would be a very different world."

"So, we've got a very long march to go and certainly the proponents of DEI and related ESG [environmental, social and governance] agendas, they're making very clear that they're not going to go quietly, certainly," Padfield said.

Target boycott

In a letter dated Feb. 12, 2025, a coalition of the nation's largest civil and human rights organizations, including the NAACP and the National Urban League, asked for an urgent meeting with congressional leadership "to discuss actionable steps to protect diversity, equity, and inclusion programs to ensure equal opportunity for all Americans."

The letter was addressed to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. "We are deeply concerned about the recent executive actions by the Trump Administration that seek to undo decades of bipartisan support for civil and human rights," the coalition wrote.

"Diversity is and will always be one of America’s greatest strengths because a diverse America is an innovative and prosperous America," the letter said. "Diversifying our institutions, providing opportunities, and working to ensure that everyone is included are not partisan values. These values strengthen our nation and are rooted in our country’s history of advancing equal opportunity and 'liberty and justice for all.'"

The letter goes on to characterize the actions taken by the Trump administration as "misguided" and, according to the coalition, "seek to erode progress and stifle opportunity for all."

The letter emphasizes that America’s strength and leadership "in an increasingly diverse and competitive world depends on our ability to be an inclusive society." It goes on to say that history has shown that without clear-cut guidelines that encourage diversity, equity and inclusion, institutions will "continue discriminatory and exclusionary patterns that hold us all back."

Some corporations have taken Trump's cue and have started to eliminate or roll back DEI programs. After Minnesota-based retailer Target announced in January that it would phase out some of its DEI initiatives, the Rev. Jamal Bryant, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, a megachurch in the Atlanta suburb of Stonecrest, Georgia, organized a 40-day "fast" of Target.

Bryant said he encouraged followers of his movement to fight back with their pocketbooks and not shop at the chain's stores from the first day of Lent, March 5, until Easter Sunday.

In an interview with ABC News, Bryant said he announced at his church on Easter that the "fast" is now a full-fledged boycott of Target.

"We began the boycott against Target because the Black community felt betrayed," Bryant said.

Among the programs Target said it is phasing out is one established in the wake of the 2020 police-involved killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man. The program assists Black employees in building meaningful careers and promoting Black-owned businesses.

"For them to roll back DEI, it was felt as a slap in the face," Bryant said.

Bryant noted that the Montgomery bus boycott led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1955 and 1956 lasted 381 days.

"We have just been boycotting Target for 10 weeks and I think that the African American community is resolved that we’re not going back into the store until we see a market change," Bryant said.

In response to the boycott, Target, which has 2,000 stores nationwide and employs more than 400,000 people, said in a April 23 statement, "We have an ongoing commitment to creating a welcoming environment for all team members, guests, and suppliers."

"It's core to how we support and grow our business," Target said. "We remain focused on supporting organizations and creating opportunities for people in the 2,000 communities where we live and operate."

But Target isn't the only major U.S. company scaling back on DEI programs. McDonald's, Meta, Walmart, Ford, John Deere and Harley-Davidson have all announced they are eliminating some DEI programs.

Some of the companies changed their DEI programs after coming under pressure from conservative groups.

Conservative political commentator and anti-woke activist Robby Starbuck publicly attacked Walmart's DEI programs. This prompted the big-box retail giant to announce it was rolling back diversity policies and pivoting from the term DEI in internal communications.

After Walmart said it was eliminating the use of the phrase "DEI" altogether, Starbuck said in a social media post, "This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America."

In a statement to ABC News, Walmart said, "Our purpose, to help people save money and live better, has been at our core since our founding 62 years ago and continues to guide us today. We can deliver on it because we are willing to change alongside our associates and customers who represent all of America."

Universities under fire

The Trump administration has also threatened to withhold federal funding and grants from universities nationwide that decline to roll back DEI programs or curb protests on campuses, including pro-Palestinian demonstrations that the administration deems antisemitic.

Some universities have fought back against the administration.

The Trump administration threatened to withhold from Harvard University $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and $60 million in multi-year contract value after demanding that the school end its DEI programs, adopt what the administration deems merit-based admissions, and cooperate with immigration authorities.

But Harvard President Alan Garber has refused to give in to the White House's demands, writing in an April 14 letter addressed to members of the Harvard community, that the school "will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights" by agreeing to the terms proposed by the Trump administration.

On April 21, Harvard sued the Trump administration, asking a Massachusetts federal judge to block Trump's funding freeze, arguing that it is "unlawful and beyond the government's authority." Harvard also argued that by withholding funds, the Trump administration is violating the First Amendment, flouting federal law, and threatening life-saving research.

"All told, the tradeoff put to Harvard and other universities is clear: Allow the Government to micromanage your academic institution or jeopardize the institution's ability to pursue medical breakthroughs, scientific discoveries, and innovative solutions," Harvard's lawyers wrote.

Trump's Department of Education has also attempted to pressure public schools K-12 to do away with DEI programs or risk losing federal funding. Education groups sued the administration over the move.

Federal judges in both Maryland and New Hampshire issued rulings this month siding with the education groups.

"This Court takes no view as to whether the policies at issue here are good or bad, prudent or foolish, fair or unfair," wrote U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher of Maryland, a Trump appointee, on Thursday. "But this Court is constitutionally required to closely scrutinize whether the government went about creating and implementing them in the manner the law requires. The government did not."

New Hampshire U.S. District Court Judge Landya McCafferty also issued an order Thursday partially blocking the Department of Education from withholding funding to public schools that did not end DEI programs.

"Ours is a nation deeply committed to safeguarding academic freedom, which is of transcendent value to all of us and not merely to the teachers concerned," McCafferty wrote, adding the "right to speak freely and to promote diversity of ideas and programs is…one of the chief distinctions that sets us apart from totalitarian regimes."

The Department of Education did not immediately respond to the rulings on Thursday.

Two sides, similar arguments

Supporters of doing away with DEI programs claim the policies are racist, discriminatory and further divide the nation, while advocates for keeping the programs argue it is racist, discriminatory and divisive to end them.

Rev. Bryant told ABC News that he believes Trump is pursuing his "war on woke" to appeal to his base.

"I think he's playing to his base of uneducated white males, who for some reason feel threatened," Bryant said. "They’re getting ready to see that America is better when we're together, not when we are segregated."

Bryant said Trump's fight against wokeism has been an attack on civil rights that demonstrators have shed blood and died for going back to the 1950s and 1960s.

"It looks like we’re going back to yesteryear and it’s a very disturbing probability," Bryant said.

On the other hand, Padfield described most DEI programs in corporate America as "overt racial discrimination."

"It’s problematic because it sets the corporation up for legal liability and it’s problematic on a moral basis because that’s not the country that we want to live in, where some of our most powerful institutions have decided that the way to get what they want in terms of demographic outcomes is just start brazenly and, in fact, proudly, discriminating on the basis of race and sex," Padfield said.

Padfield added, “The problem is that the pro-DEI solution actually makes things worse and divides us further. And what I’m hoping for is that ultimately corporate America wakes up and starts addressing these inequalities on a colorblind basis."

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