Rolls-Royce is the youngest large company in Great Britain, which withdraws from initiatives to diversity, equity and inclusion (Dei).

The FTSE 100 Aerospace and Defense Group, which employs 43,000 employees worldwide, has informed employees that they will reduce financing and internal support for their employees such as Prism, its LGBTQ+ group. While the employees can continue to meet informally, the groups will no longer receive corporate support on which corporate intranet are present or promote events within the corporate rooms.

The changes were communicated last month by Natasha Whitehurst, head of diversity, inclusion and belonging, and Adam Riddle, Head of North America. They also confirmed the introduction of a new “employee language network”, which is open to all employees and were able to replace the identity-specific groups.

Rolls-Royce said the decision was made to ensure compliance with the recently introduced anti-DEI legislation in the United States, in which 6,000 employees and a third of the income from the company came. The company holds large defense contracts with the US government, including motor production for military aircraft such as C-130 Hercules and B-52 bomber fleets.

In an explanation, a Rolls-Royce spokesman said: “We support all of our colleagues to be in the best form to ensure that we live according to our behavior and drive a culture of high performance and commitment. We regularly check our guidelines and the approach to meet this result, while we meet all legal requirements of the legal requirements in the habits we have.”

Since then, references to Dei and the inclusion networks have been removed from the Rolls-Royce company website.

Rolls-Royce is not alone in his course correction. Other British multinational companies with important US footprints have withdrawn their DEI visibility in the past few months. GSK has removed references to “diversity” from its website, while WPP, the advertising book group, the language language from their annual reports and the remuneration criteria for managers has excluded.

The rollback takes place in the middle of a broader backlash against company guidelines in the United States, whereby the administration of Trump aimed at what it sees as a politically motivated company initiatives. Several states conducted by Republicans have introduced laws to ban or restrict diversity programs in publicly financed institutions and companies that conclude with the government.

The decision is a strong contrast to previous news from the leadership of Rolls-Royce. Last year, CEO Tufan Erginbilgic praised the inclusion networks as a “powerful way” in order to promote a feeling of belonging in the entire company.

“As volunteers from all parts of our business – from the workshop to the leadership role – they are role models that bring us together and help us learn,” he said in 2024.

Despite this shift, Rolls-Royce insists that the merit-based setting remains of central importance for its culture. The global imposition of the Compliance standards of the United States – also in countries in which the programs are still encouraged – has criticized by activists and employees alike.

Since the political examination is growing in both the United States and Great Britain, the future of the efforts of corporate inclusion can be increasingly prevented from reconciling internal culture with the external pressure – and navigating the legal gray zones in between.