Following the national uprising over the murder of George Floyd, corporations sought out more women and people of color to diversify their boards of directors.

For a time, the once ironclad dominance of men – especially White men – in the corporate boardroom appeared to be slipping. Over the last five years, racial and ethnic representation rose 20% and female representation 18% in companies included in the Russell 3000 index, according to data and analytics firm ISS-Corporate.Today, the boardrooms of the nation’s largest companies have never been more diverse.

But new data shows that the diversity, equity and inclusion backlash is shifting boardroom demographics once again, eroding gains made by women and people of color as corporations hire White men at the fastest clip in years.

This year, women accounted for a third of new board hires in the S&P 500, down from a high of 44% in 2022, ISS-Corporate says. Executives of color made up 19% of new board hires, down from 44% in 2021.

White men were a majority of new director hires for the first time since 2017. These top leadership posts confer prestige, power and a big paycheck.

“This seems to be part of the broader pendulum shift away from a focus on diversity that we have seen over the past couple of years in corporate America,” said Joelle Emerson, CEO of culture and inclusion platform Paradigm Strategy.

The shift comes as President Donald Trump’s heightened scrutiny of DEI initiatives spreads across the private sector. With fear rising over losing federal contracts or facing investigations, corporations have rolled back or dismantled diversity programs.

Institutional investors have stopped pushing for diversity. The courts struck down Nasdaq rules to increase boardroom diversity and California laws requiring more women and people from underrepresented communities on corporate boards.

Public pressure has declined as well. While most Americans still think diversity matters in business and associate it with greater innovation and higher profits, fewer Americans see it as a business priority, the latest Bentley University-Gallup Business in Society survey found.

Some 69% of U.S. adults say it’s important for businesses to promote DEI, down from 84% in 2022 – the lowest ebb since tracking began.

“A lot of the reason that boards increased representation over a multi-year period was external pressure and that does not exist anymore,” Emerson said.

Fewer boards to add women, people of color

As they navigate tricky political and economic shoals, fewer boards plan to add women and people of color to their boardrooms this year, accounting and advisory firm PwC said in a recent report.

The percentage of corporate directors who said their boards were planning to add gender diversity fell to 9% from 21% in 2024. Just 6% of directors said their boards planned to add racial or ethnic diversity, down from 13%.

“Following year-over-year increases in gender, race and ethnic representation on boards, there are early signs that we may see a slowdown,” PwC said.

That slowdown is risking hard-fought gains for Black Americans in the workplace as boards revert to “narrow specs” when considering new directors, said Barry Lawson Williams, a corporate executive who has served on more than a dozen boards.

Narrowing searches to those with experience running a company or a major business unit means they are confined to a much smaller pool of executives with decades of experience and, because of historic hiring patterns, that talent pool is dominated by White men, Williams said.

“My view is more than ample minority candidates exist but are often not on the radar, especially for board referrals,” he said.

Tarang Amin, chairman and CEO of Elf Beauty, is bucking the tide. He says his is one of a handful of publicly traded companies whose board of directors is 67% female and 44% diverse.

“We’re very clear. We believe it is a competitive advantage to have a team that reflects the communities we serve. Having a diverse board has been very important to us in our decision making,” he told CNN in a recent interview. “So we’re standing for what we stand for. We have for 21 years and we are going to continue to.”

(This story has been updated to remove earlier edits.)

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: With Trump DEI backlash, white men are making gains in the boardroom

Reporting by Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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