Goldman Sachs Axes Demographic DEI Language From Board Criteria

Goldman Sachs is preparing to remove explicit demographic language from its board selection criteria, a notable shift that reflects the growing pressure on corporate DEI policies in the wake of President Donald Trump’s return to office.

The Wall Street firm plans to eliminate references to race, gender identity, ethnicity, and sexual orientation from the standards used to evaluate potential board members, according to a report published Monday.

As the report explains:

The board's governing committee evaluates potential candidates based on four criteria, one of which is a more traditional understanding of diversity, encapsulating viewpoints, background, work and military service. That section also has "other demographics" tagged on to the end, referring to race, gender identity, ethnicity and sexual orientation, according to the Journal. The board now reportedly plans to remove the reference to "other demographics."

The change follows pressure from the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative nonprofit shareholder that formally requested the revision last September (Fox Business). The group owns a small stake in Goldman Sachs and pushed to remove the demographic language ahead of the company’s annual meeting.

Rather than forcing a public shareholder vote, the dispute was resolved directly.

Goldman Sachs agreed to the change after a September request from the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative nonprofit shareholder, avoiding a formal proposal at the upcoming annual meeting.

That sequence matters. A shareholder request in the fall. Negotiations behind the scenes. A governance revision months later.

This did not happen in isolation. The decision comes as the Trump administration aggressively moves to dismantle DEI programs across the federal government. On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” directing agencies to eliminate DEI initiatives. The following day, he signed another order aimed at restoring merit-based opportunity in federal contracting and compliance structures.

In March, Trump declared that we would be moving away from being “woke,” signaling that DEI policy would be a central target of his administration’s second term.

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Goldman Sachs had already begun stepping back from earlier diversity mandates. Last year, the bank eliminated a requirement that companies it took public meet specific board diversity thresholds. The current change goes further by rewriting the firm’s own internal candidate evaluation language.

Goldman has not publicly stated that the revision was made in response to the Trump administration. But the timing aligns with a broader federal rollback of DEI initiatives and an increasingly assertive posture from conservative shareholder activists challenging demographic mandates in corporate governance.

Put plainly, this is how political influence travels. Executive action shifts the regulatory environment. Shareholders test corporate policy. Boardrooms adjust accordingly.

For years, demographic DEI language spread through corporate governance documents with little resistance. Now the direction is reversing. When federal policy changes and investor pressure follows, even established institutions recalibrate. In this case, the rollback is not symbolic. It is embedded directly into the criteria used to determine who sits on Goldman Sachs’ board.

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