Et tu, Mickey?
Another capitulation to the Trump regime's reign of retribution is on the horizon, and it's a big one.
The Trump administration’s intimidation and retribution campaign has taken aim at a broad range of American institutions, industries and individuals, using various arms of the federal government as weapons.
Among the latest victims: the world’s favorite Mouse. As in Mickey Mouse, namely the Walt Disney Corp., an entertainment, travel and consumer products company. The administration’s cudgel of choice? The Federal Communications Commission, or more specifically, the federal agency’s licensing approval allowing Disney and subsidiaries like the ABC television network to use public airwaves and infrastructure.
Disney World clock tower. (Photo by Zino Scheers on Unsplash)
The threat? An inviestigation into Disney’s “invidious” employment practices and company policies related to DEI initiatives, which President Trump has termed “illegal.”
Ducks in a row
Before getting into the specifics of this particular case, let’s agree on a few definitions.:
Invidious adjective
(From Oxford Languages, the official dictionary of Goggle)
(of an action or situation) likely to arouse or incur resentment or anger in others.
“She'd put herself in an invidious position.”
Similar: Unpleasant, awkward, difficult, undesirable, unenviable(of a comparison or distinction) unfairly discriminating; unjust.
“It seems invidious to make special mention of one aspect of his work.”
Illegal adjective
(From Oxford Languages)
Contrary to or forbidden by law, especially criminal law.
Point of clarification: Trump’s executive order overturning the Biden administration’s EO calling on federal contractors and the government itself to employ hiring policies focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion does not carry the weight of law. No EO does. Law requires Congressional passage.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Government agency
(From fcc.gov, a federal government website)
The Federal Communications Commission regulates interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and U.S. territories. An independent U.S. government agency overseen by Congress, the Commission is the federal agency responsible for implementing and enforcing America’s communications law and regulations.
DEI, or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, a concept, suddenly highly divisive
It depends on whom you ask. But until Trump’s presidencies, it was seen, generally, as a good thing.
The narrative
OK, now let’s use this as our base of understanding and agreement from which to explore Trump’s latest salvo in the war against DEI, with the canon aimed squarely at Mickey, Donald and friends.
FCC Chairman Brendan Car, in a three-page letter to Disney CEO Robert Iger, announced the investigation into Disney and ABC, to which Disney responded that it’s reviewing the letter, and that “we look forward to engaging … to answer (the FCC’s) questions.”
The threat is just the latest in a series of breathtakingly broad attempts by the government to control in-house policies of private entities, including higher education, legal practices, and retail, commercial and industrial businesses, and many have aquiesced, to varying degrees.
Will Mickey, er Iger, cave? The writing is on the wall and it’s coming into sharper focus. And if you’re on the side of fairness, equality, workers rights, and free speech, it’s not looking good.
Last year, ABC/Disney agreed to “donate” $15 million to aTrump presidential foundation and library in exchange for Trump dropping a libel suit against the network and news anchor George Stephanopoulos for his wording in an interview of Congresswoman Nancy Mace referring to Trump as “liable for rape.” Trump was never charged criminally; he was found liable by a civil jury and ordered to pay damages to writer E. Jean Carroll for sexual assault. The judge in the case referred to then-candidate Trump as “an adjudicated rapist.”
And over the last several months, in both internal memos and public-facing statements, Disney has been pulling away from its full-throated support for the cultural principles of DEI.
Disney’s top human resources executive wrote in a memo to employees that the media giant will change the way it reviews talent, from members of the C suite to on-air performers, using what it calls a “talent” metric over a “diversity and inclusion” metric, putting the focus on business outcomes. In plain language, Disney is saying employees whose actions lift the company’s bottom line will score higher in performance reviews than those whose decisions are guided by fairness.
In his letter, Carr pointed to an ABC goal of increasing minority representation on all newly created shows, saying the guideline could result in discriminatory hiring practices and cost the network its broadcast license.
In an example of complying in advance, Disney will eliminate its “Reimagine Tomorrow” website that amplifies “diverse” employees and change content warnings on older films shown on Disney+ to erase references to culture and diversity.
The news is filled with reports of companies changing or eliminating DEI programs in the wake of Trump’s election, and that has continued to speed up as the administration amplifies its position on what it calls “woke” initiatives.
Certainly, some companies grudgingly followed Biden’s DEI order, and were all too happy to abandon such initiatives when Trump was re-elected. Companies owned by political and/or religiously conservative individuals, families and organizations come to mind, such as WalMart, Hobby Lobby, and Chick Fil-A. Others embraced more racial, ethnic and cultural diversity during the Obama and Biden administrations as they attempted to expand their customer base. These include Target, many auto manufacturers and financial institutions. And then there are the true believers, who are holding steady or doubling down on DEI.
Disney appears to be falling into that middle camp, of companies hedging their bets by “reframing” their DEI rules while announcing, as Major League Baseball has done, that their “core values have not changed.”
Keeping in mind that businesses operate to make a profit, many indicate privately that the popularity of Trump and his MAGA movement has them rethinking their marketing strategy in order to prevent conservative customers from taking their business elsewhere.
At Disney, that concern is stated publicly. In an article about the FCC investigation, Forbes quoted from the company’s 2024 annual report: “Our businesses create entertainment, travel and consumer products, the success of which depends substantially on consumer tastes and preferences that change in often unpredictable ways. Preferences of some consumers are affected by their perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including regarding environmental and social issues.”
Nothing new
It may seem that hiring using principles of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is a new thing. Not so! Most Americans alive today have been employed under a form of DEI, whether “affirmative action (a term coined by President Lyndon Johnson in a 1965 order still in force today),” or the Equal Opportunity Act passed in 1972 during the Nixon administration. No president yet has revoked Johnson’s affirmative action order, although Ronald Reagan did intend to issue a replacement order weakening its protections, but backed off. (More on this later.)
Since the mid-1960s, government has acknowledged the benefits of diversifying the federal work force.
Only since the rise of the ultra-right “Make America Great Again” movement embraced by Trump supporters has diversity — whether in race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, political affiliation, or any characteristic that makes each of us different from the other — been so maligned to the point that the country’s governing administration seeks to eliminate it.
Inclusion and Equity are “foreign” concepts to the Trump administration as well. Literally. The president and those in his administration mock countries where these are guiding principles, and refer to them as un-American.
Here is how the American Psychological Association defines DEI: Equity, diversity, and inclusion is a conceptual framework that promotes the fair treatment and full participation of all people, especially populations that have historically been under-represented or subject to discrimination because of their background, identity, disability, etc.
There isn’t enough time or space in this particular post to study, debate, investigate or explain why these concepts are anathema to the right wing. I’d like to think if you’ve read this far, you believe there simply is none.
The beginning of the end?
The “war on woke,” as it’s been called, has been brewing for more than 40 years.
In 1985, when Ronald Reagan, the hero of today’s Republican party, began his second term in the Oval Office, his 1984 landslide victory over Walter Mondale signaled to him and his supporters a “mandate” to accelerate the pace of his administration’s moves to weaken affirmative action protections in the federal government and for federal contractors. His plan, not yet made public, was to revoke Johnson’s 1965 Executive Order and replace it with one that emphasized deregulation and treated hiring as a “colorblind” process.
But when it leaked, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress, and leaders of some of the biggest corporations in America, including big pharma’s Merck, whose chairman vowed to continue affirmative action timetables and and goals regardless of what the government did.
Reagan was not so bold as to call for an outright government ban on fairness, but his claim of wishing for a “colorblind” society was a step in the Orwellian journey toward exactly that.
The institutions now in the Trump administration’s crosshairs seem to have little of the courage and resolve that companies like Merck, General Motors and IBM did in 1985.
Today, stories of capitulation to threats from the administration, related not only to diversity practices but regarding free speech and unpopular political actions, are increasing in number.
Columbia University’s acting president, just days before stepping down, agreed to a list of demands including more robust oversight in the college’s Middle East studies an admission that it allowed anti-Semitic behavior on its campus during pro-Paestinian demonstrations, and to base hiring on decisions on “merit” rather than so-called DEI practices. In exchange, the administration agreed to open a dialogue into releasing $400 million in federal medical research grants for the private institution.
Two major law firms, Paul Weiss in New York and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Washington, DC, have entered into agreements with Trump to provide millions of dollars worth of pro bono work for his administration, and to agree to all but abandon diversity and equity in their hiring practices.
After Trump’s executive order prohibiting “DEI” in companies that contract with the government launched a flood of public pronouncements from private businesses with no government businesss that they, too, would abandon their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. They include but aren’t limited to professional sports leagues (Major League Baseball is the latest, joining the National Football League), retail giants (Target, WalMart, Tractor Supply, Lowes), financial institutions (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo), and manufacturers (Ford, Molson Coors, Harley Davidson, Toyota, John Deere).
Many of the companies mentioned here have suffered substantial losses as a result of consumer pushback and boycotts, proving once again that when people unify behind a movement and speak with their dollars, good things can happen.
Despite the attention all the companies abandoning fairness in hiring and employment are receiving, the majority of American employers are holding firm to the values and principles of DEI.
Among them is IBM, as committed now as it was in 1985 to stand with the equality of opportunity that it credited 40 years ago as a benefit to the company and a big factor in what made it successful.
Authoritarian creep
The Trump administration’s insistence that the United States enshrine discrimination is, it goes without saying, despicable.
And the acquiesence of so many private entities is a cause for grave concern.
But the use of government agencies, endowed with vast power already and funded using money taken from hard-working Americans who will be damaged by their actions, is immoral.
Disney, whatever you may think about the company and its outsized influence on American culture, is a private business. Yes, it uses America’s telecommunications infrastructure and so is subject to the commission’s licensing decision.
FCC is empowered by Congress to:
Promote competition, innovation and investment in broadband services and facilities
Support nation's economy by ensuring an appropriate competitive framework for the unfolding of the communications revolution
Encourage the highest and best use of the telecommunications spectrum domestically and internationally
Revise media regulations so that new technologies flourish alongside diversity and localism
Provide leadership in strengthening the defense of the nation's communications infrastructure
I’m no lawyer, but I think the government would be hard-pressed to argue in a court that the FCC has the authority to withhold a broadcast license because the licensee refused to allow the government to dictate how it words a website referring to why a movie, if made today, would be viewed as culturally offensive.
And that brings us full-circle to the wording of FCC chairman Carr of the “invidious” DEI practices, and the definition of that word at the beginning of this post. There is a concept enshrined in the Constitution that forms the basis of the laws that govern the United States of America. In layman’s terms, it protects us all from the government punishing any of us for using words that others find offensive, or, according to the actual dictionary definition of offensive: invidious.
Again, no legal degree here, but Carr’s investigation, opened at the behest of the president of the United States, appears on its face to be unconstitutional.
Disney’s actions so far are bending the knee to a dictator, pure and simple. The fact that it has already taken what it considers limited actions in that direction is rolling over in the face of fascism.
And if Disney, one of the most financially successful entities on the planet, can’t resist, who will?
Are you tired of watching our government insert itself where it doesn’t belong? Do you support a healthy relationship between owners/managers and employees where mutual respect and equity for all is the goal? We are too. Visit votelabor.org to learn more about the Labor Party and to discover how our values align with yours.