Paramount employees are blasting the studio’s decision to roll back their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in a searing letter sent to the company’s co-CEOs, according to one report.
“As employees of Paramount Global, we are extremely disappointed — but not surprised — by the senior leadership team’s decision to roll back our commitments to DEI. This capitulation reflects the profound hypocrisy in extracting labor from diverse communities, creating content from and for diverse communities, targeting the dollars of diverse communities… while committing to the erasure and exclusion of those very same diverse communities,” the employees, who are anonymous, said in the letter posted on LinkedIn by the New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin.
The media conglomerate reportedly informed employees that the company would be backtracking on its DEI policies in a February memo.
Paramount is ending their aspirational hiring goals with respect to race, gender and sexuality, per the memo. The memo, which was signed by Paramount co-CEOs Brian Robbins, George Cheeks and Chris McCarthy, also stated that the company would end DEI factors in its employee compensation plan and stop collecting diversity data on its U.S. job applicants.
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“With our business objectives firmly in mind, we will continue to evaluate our programs and approach to ensure that we are widening our aperture to attract talent from all geographies, backgrounds and perspectives. That may mean expanding existing programs while ending others,” the memo said.
The CEOs said that the changes were necessary due to the Trump administration’s executive orders abolishing DEI in the federal government and targeting the policies among federal contractors, which the memo states “require changes in the way the company [Paramount] approaches inclusion moving forward.”
Paramount’s DEI changes come as the company finds itself under FCC scrutiny regarding its $8 billion merger with independent studio Skydance.
Some Paramount employees did not seem to welcome the changes, however, accusing the CEOs of “continuing to kiss the ring and pay off mob bosses,” in their letter, which was addressed to them.
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“How, in good conscience, can we continue to market to our global audiences and profit from their cultural contributions, while erasing our own internal commitments to equity for and inclusion of those audiences? How can we continue to attract talent with promises that are walked back the moment they become inconvenient?” the letter stated.
The employees also slammed the company, which owns CBS, BET, Comedy Central and MTV, for recent layoffs which they claim has forced them to “say goodbye to countless talented and brilliant colleagues,” whom they claim were disproportionately from “underrepresented” demographics.
Paramount cut 15% of its US workforce in August 2024.
Paramount declined to comment for this story.
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