Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropy has shuttered its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs as well as work on immigration reform as it reduces social advocacy work, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) announced Tuesday.
“Given the shifting regulatory and legal landscape, we will no longer have a diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility team at CZI,” CZI’s chief operating officer Marc Malandro wrote in an email to staff on Tuesday.
The three members of the team were moved to different roles and the philanthropy ended its “Diverse Slate Practice.”
Malandro said he and the team have reviewed CZI programs to “ensure that they align with our focus as a science philanthropy” and the “current legal and policy landscape.”
CZI decided a few years ago to “wind down social advocacy work” and funding and gear its primary focus to science, Malandro said.
As part of the shift in focus, CZI eliminated its work on immigration reform and racial equity grantmaking.
“There are a small number of multi-year grant commitments we made previously that we will still honor, but none of these will support political activism. Looking ahead, we expect CZI’s increasing focus to continue to be pushing the frontiers of biology and AI,” Malandro wrote.
CZI was founded in 2015 by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, to combat challenges in science and education and within communities.
Looking forward, Malandro said CZI is focused on “four grand challenges,” including the building of an AI-based virtual cell model, developing imaging systems for living cells, “instrumenting tissues” to research inflammation and “engineering and harnessing the immune system for early detection, prevention, and treatment of disease.”
The announcement comes weeks after Meta cut its DEI team and rolled back several related programs in a major shift in policy for the leading social media company.
DEI programs have been a focus of political conversation since President Trump was sworn in last month. Days after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to end “illegal preferences and discrimination” in government and help find ways to “encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.”
Various federal agencies have purged staff of DEI-related positions, while major companies like Target, McDonald’s and Walmart have ended or rolled back DEI policies.
