DEI and woke ideology are on life support under Trump's return to DC, but could come roaring back with rebrand

DEI and woke ideology are on life support under Trump's return to DC: expert

American Principles Project President Terry Schilling spoke to Fox News Digital ahead of New Year’s to discuss President Donald Trump’s efforts to stamp out woke ideology since his return to the Oval Office.

President Donald Trump’s early second-term blitz against "woke" ideology, including diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, have rippled far beyond Washington, D.C., as companies roll back such policies. 

But the left-wing credos could come roaring back to public view under a rebranding, the president of American Principles Project (APP) told Fox News Digital. 

"DEI is still alive. It's not dead yet. It's bleeding, right? We've got blood here, but we know it's vulnerable," Terry Schilling, the president of conservative nonprofit and advocacy group the American Principles Project, told Fox News Digital in a December Zoom interview. "But they're still in charge of the admissions offices and colleges. They're still charge of HR departments, and they're still largely a part of Silicon Valley."

American Principles Project has documented the cultural shifts in recent years to embrace DEI initiatives, which conservatives argue replace merit with race and identity preferences that effectively penalize some Americans at work and at school through the expansion of bureaucracy and ideological pressure. Schilling said that while the "woke" push seen under the Biden era is retreating under the Trump administration, it is still alive and could make a return. 

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"DEI is retreating," Schilling said in the interview. "But I think that it's important that we recognize that DEA is not disbanding, it's rebranding."

But the left-wing DEI credos could come roaring back to public view under a rebranding, the president of American Principles Project (APP) told Fox News Digital.  (iStock )

Trump swiftly moved to drop the hammer on DEI and woke initiatives upon his return to office in January, including signing an executive order on day one, titled "Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing," which directed federal agencies to stamp out DEI-style programs across the federal government. The following day, Trump signed a second order aimed at "restoring merit-based opportunity," including changes for federal contracting and related compliance.

"We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military. And our country will be woke no longer," Trump said from the dais in Congress in March, celebrating his administration achievement just a few months into the job. 

Schilling said Trump turned DEI on its head upon his return to the Oval Office, pointing to his executive orders as death knells heard at the highest echelons of corporate America down to public school classrooms.

"Trump winning the election had a lot to do with this," Schilling said. "You're seeing all these CEOs of major tech companies and companies abroad coming to the White House, kissing the ring. They know who's in power and they're willing to make deals to get their projects over the finish line. And that's all great. We should use that. We should us that momentum to further cement opposition to DEI."

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Silicon Valley has long been viewed and criticized as a powerful weapon used to silence conservatives — such as when social media platforms suppressed news reports on former first son Hunter Biden's laptop ahead of the 2020 election — with top tech CEOs signaling a Trump-era pivot this year as they work to ink deals to expand their businesses amid the artificial intelligence boom. 

President Donald Trump swiftly moved to drop the hammer on DEI and woke initiatives upon his return to office in January.  (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press )

"President Trump's executive orders did so much to cut back against DEI, banning DEI throughout the entire federal workforce, banning schools from using and tying federal funds to whether or not schools are implementing racist policies like DEI has done a lot to curb it," Schilling said. 

"However, these guys are lying in wait," he added. 

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Massive American staple company Target announced the conclusion of DEI goals after a three-year initiative, while Disney also made changes such as removing DEI-related terms from its annual business reports. Cracker Barrel, after a bruising backlash to its branding overhaul earlier in 2025, scrapped remodel plans and reverted to its old logo, with Fox Digital previously reporting the chain eliminated DEI programs as part of its latest changes.

"DEI is an employment issue," Schilling said. "It’s keeping a large amount of Americans who deserve to have good lives and good incomes out of the workforce simply because they have the wrong color of skin."

Democrats generally support DEI policies as they see them as a way to expand opportunity and reduce discrimination in hiring, promotion and education, especially for groups they argue have faced historic barriers. Left-wing lawmakers stretching from members of the Congressional Black Caucus to Democrat 2025 political candidates, such as New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, have slammed or campaigned against Trump's roll-back of DEI policies. 

Diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have been the subject of heated opinions of praise and rebuke.  (Adobe Stock)

Schilling warned that upcoming elections could undo the progress Trump has made in eliminating DEI policies at the federal level, pointing to the 2028 presidential election. 

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"They are lying in wait for the next Democrat president like Gavin Newsom, like JB Pritzker. There's really no doubt that if another Democrat gets into office, they're not just going to undo everything President Trump did to curb all the racism through DEI programs. They going to ramp it up. They gonna do it even more so than Barack Obama did and Joe Biden did. So we've got to continue to fight this," Schilling said. 

The American Principles Project president continued that ending DEI and woke ideology for good requires conservative Republicans winning elections and conservative voters to talk with their feet with boycotts if a corporation leans into promoting left-wing policies, underscoring DEI is an economic issue, in addition to a cultural one. 

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"If we really want to save the future, DEI must be killed, because it's not just about the culture, it's just not about racism," he said. "It's so much more. It's the economy, it's the future of America, it's our families, it is our children, and so we really need to remain eternally vigilant until it's obvious that DEI is never coming back."