During the height of the racial justice protests that came after Minneapolis police murdered George Floyd, McDonald’s joined the fray of businesses and institutions declaring their solidarity with all those committed to ending racism. In a post on June 3, 2020, on the platform then known as Twitter, McDonald’s shared a short video listing Floyd’s name alongside other Black victims of violence, including Trayvon Martin and Atatiana Jefferson.
McDonald’s announced this week that it’s stepping away from its previously established DEI goals.
In muted red and yellow tones, the video read: “He was one of us; she was one us,” and continued that the “entire McDonald’s family grieves.” McDonald’s declared itself in solidarity with “victims of systemic oppression,” and made it clear that the corporation stands “with Black communities.” It offered as proof its donations to the Urban League and the NAACP. The video ended with a black screen with white letters: “Black lives matter.”
It’s unlikely that McDonald’s will be posting a similar video anytime soon. McDonald’s announced this week that it’s stepping away from some of its previously established DEI goals, retiring a specific DEI pledge and changing the way it refers to its diversity team.
The gestures made during the summer of 2020 appear to have been compelled more by peer pressure than by principle. Now, leaders of organizations from big-box stores to universities have publicly disavowed policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion, whose acronym DEI has become shorthand for any and all attempts to address centuries of homogeneity, inequality and exclusion in educational and professional spaces.
In other sectors, leadership and development support programs for racial and ethnic minorities have been renamed, restructured or simply retired. And in light of the Supreme Court curtailing affirmative action in higher education and a concerted conservative onslaught on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, McDonald’s frames its move as an attempt to pre-empt further court challenges to its diversity efforts.
In a Jan. 6 open letter to employees and franchisees that acknowledges “the shifting legal landscape,” the company’s senior leadership team announced what it called “a new concept: the power of OUR ‘Golden Rule’ — treating everyone with dignity, fairness and respect, always.” The company says it is:
- “retiring setting aspirational representation goals and instead keeping our focus on continuing to embed inclusion practices that grow our business into our everyday process and operations”
- “pausing external surveys to focus on the work we are doing internally to grow the business”
- “retiring Supply Chain’s Mutual Commitment to DEI pledge in favor of a more integrated discussion with suppliers about inclusion”
- and “evolving how we refer to our diversity team, which will now be the Global Inclusion Team.”
McDonald’s senior leadership said it remains committed to inclusion and believes a diverse workforce is a competitive advantage.
How it distributes its supply contracts not only impacts which companies get the opportunity to stock McDonald’s restaurants with hamburger buns and sausage patties, but it also impacts workers who prepare these essential goods. “Pausing external surveys” means aggrieved employees may have trouble collecting data and information on potentially discriminatory action within the organization.
McDonald’s is among a few corporations that have profited heartily from the idea that they are a friend to Black communities. Long before the summer of 2020, the summer of 1968 (which followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.) spurred soul-searching and reflection about how people in power could be vehicles for social change. Unfortunately, in both eras, many of the proposed solutions pivoted on businesses making commitments to recruit more talent of color while also eyeing the ways that these seemingly pro-social policies could also yield more profits.
McDonald’s has profited heartily from the idea that it is a friend to Black communities.
McDonald’s had already emerged as a dominant presence in the fast-food world, but in the late 1960s, the company would distinguish itself as leader in what would eventually be called DEI. The first step was recruiting its first Black franchisee, Herman Petty, to reopen a store on Chicago’s South Side in December 1968, and enlisting Black regional managers and advisers to build what would be called “Black stores.” A numerically modest but economically impactful group of Black franchise owners introduced and revived the brand among urban consumers of color. McDonald’s devoted an advertising budget to create content exclusively for minority media and recruited Black celebrities like Michael Jordan and Gladys Knight for national campaigns, making the company a leading source of contracts for Black-owned radio and TV networks, as well as marketing and consulting firms.
The McDonald’s logo appeared on material heralding contributions to civil rights organizations, historically Black colleges and universities and cultural initiatives. Many of those actions were initiated and funded by its growing network of Black franchise owners, who tried to hold McDonald’s accountable for contributing to a loyal and critical part of their consumer market.
Forty-four years after the first Black franchise owner entered the McDonald’s system, the chain selected Don Thompson, its first Black CEO, in 2012. That felt like a sign that the Golden Arches could recognize Black talent after decades of touting itself as a diversity champion in its recruitment efforts. Much of the company’s success — from the 1980s until the mid-2000s — was related to the work of Patricia Sowell Harris, a pioneer in the field of corporate diversity who started her early career at McDonald’s as an affirmative action officer in 1985. In light of the national backlash against discussing the nation’s history or racism, it may not come as much of a surprise to those who don’t know the company’s history that McDonald’s is disavowing DEI. But so much of McDonald’s branding strategy for the last 50 years has promoted the chain as not just a place to eat cheap food served fast but as a supporter of the Black community and Black entrepreneurship. This thinking and strategy expanded to other communities that gave birth to affinity groups for Latino franchisees, members of the AAPI community, women and LGBTQ people. This was smart business because it was lucrative, but it was also protective business because such demonstrations of appreciating diversity could also be used to deflect serious and important challenges to the labor experiences of its workers, most of whom are people of color. So much of McDonald’s branding strategy has promoted the chain as a supporter of the Black community and Black entrepreneurship. In recent years, when Black franchisees have organized and filed lawsuits against McDonald’s claiming racial discrimination related to the assignment of restaurants and alleging a lack support during challenging times such as the Covid-19 shutdowns, McDonald’s was able to argue its bona fides in creating Black wealth through franchises and its internal commitment to diversity. But with its announcement that it’s retiring certain DEI policies, McDonald’s seems to have concluded that it doesn’t need the diversity talking points anymore, and although it’s one of the most powerful and influential global corporations with a record that speaks volumes about how diversity initiatives have enriched the company, it doesn’t appear to believe that diversity — no matter how superficial — is worth fighting for anymore. In McDonald’s announcement, the company argued that its “early and full adoption of inclusion gives us a competitive advantage,” which both recognizes and glosses over the dynamic history that McDonald’s has had in DEI and signals that the company hopes the public will use the past to inform the present. But it’s still uncertain what the future will hold for a company that once touted itself to be a fast-food leader and has revealed that, like most corporations, it’s just a self-interested follower.
Marcia Chatelain
Marcia Chatelain is a professor of African American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America." 
