Boeing said to dismantle diversity department, DEI head quits

Boeing (NYSE:BA) is the latest major company to dismantle its diversity, equity and inclusion team, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg, joining the likes of Tractor Supply (TSCO), Lowe’s (LOW) and Ford (F).

The department’s staff will move to another human resources team focused on talent and employee experience. Sara Liang Bowen, vice president at Boeing (BA) who led the DEI department, left the company on Thursday.

“The team achieved so much – sometimes imperfectly, never easily – and dreamed of doing much more still. All of it has been worth it,” she wrote on LinkedIn.

The move comes as large U.S. companies have been facing growing pressure on social media to dismantle or scale back DEI efforts.

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck, who claimed credit for other companies that pulled back DEI initiatives, said he’d notified Boeing’s (BA) new CEO Kelly Ortberg and board chair Steve Mollenkopf weeks ago that he was planning “to expose their woke policies.”

“Today they’re making a BIG preemptive change,” Starbuck declared. “The landscape of corporate America is quickly shifting to sanity and neutrality.”

Boeing’s (BA) DEI move also comes as it’s streamlining operations and trimming its workforce. The efforts are aimed at cutting costs amid financial pressures and production woes brought on by a labor strike that dragged on for over a month.

The troubled planemaker made a third attempt to appease striking workers, by offering a 38% wage hike over four years in its latest proposal. The union will vote on the deal Monday.