By: Jason Ostedder

In a decision that reverberated far beyond the boardroom of a single Wall Street institution, Goldman Sachs has taken a further and symbolically potent step away from the diversity mandates that once stood at the heart of its corporate identity. The move, confirmed by individuals with knowledge of the bank’s internal deliberations, signals that Goldman will no longer explicitly factor race, gender, or sexual orientation into its evaluation of potential board members. It is a recalibration that would have been almost inconceivable a half-decade ago, when the firm publicly cast itself as a vanguard of corporate inclusion. Now, as The New York Times has chronicled in a report on Tuesday of shifting corporate mores, the pendulum of American business culture is swinging in a markedly different direction, shaped by new political winds, legal anxieties, and shareholder activism that has gained traction under the renewed Trump administration.

The decision did not emerge in a vacuum. According to those familiar with the matter, Goldman’s retreat from formal diversity criteria was catalyzed by a negotiated agreement with the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative nonprofit organization that has made dismantling corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion frameworks a central plank of its activism. The group, which holds a modest stake in Goldman, agreed to withdraw a shareholder proposal demanding the elimination of diversity criteria for board appointments.

The deal, first reported by The Wall Street Journal and subsequently scrutinized by The New York Times, reflects a broader pattern in which corporate governance is increasingly shaped by legal pressure and ideologically motivated shareholder campaigns rather than by the aspirational rhetoric that once defined the era of post-2020 corporate reform.

Goldman’s recalibration is emblematic of a wider corporate retreat from formal D.E.I. mandates. As The New York Times report observed, many of the initiatives that flourished in the aftermath of social upheavals earlier in the decade are now being reassessed in the glare of legal scrutiny and political realignment. The Trump administration has framed certain diversity programs as forms of reverse discrimination, arguing that policies designed to elevate underrepresented groups unfairly disadvantage white employees and job applicants. This posture has emboldened advocacy groups and regulators alike to interrogate corporate practices that were once heralded as progressive and overdue corrections to entrenched inequities.

The shift is especially striking at Goldman Sachs because of the firm’s prior posture as a conspicuous champion of diversity. For years, its chief executive, David Solomon, spoke in almost missionary terms about the moral and strategic imperatives of transforming the bank’s traditionally homogeneous workforce. In March 2019, Solomon, alongside senior executives John Waldron and Stephen M. Scherr, declared diversity and inclusion to be “a top priority,” pledging measurable improvements in the demographic composition of recruiting classes.

Their communiqué, widely circulated within the firm and later cited by The New York Times as a benchmark of corporate ambition, set out specific targets for the representation of women, Black professionals, and Hispanic or Latino professionals across key regions. The message was unambiguous: inclusion was not merely a corporate virtue but a strategic necessity.

That ethos soon found expression in policy. In 2020, Solomon announced that Goldman would decline to take companies public in the United States or Europe unless their boards included at least one “diverse” member, a criterion that would be tightened the following year to require at least two such directors. At the time, the policy was widely interpreted as a shot across the bow of corporate governance, signaling that access to elite capital markets would increasingly be conditioned on demonstrable commitments to diversity. The New York Times reported on the ripple effects of that announcement, noting that it spurred a flurry of boardroom appointments across industries as companies scrambled to meet the new standards.

Yet the intervening years have altered the calculus. Even before President Trump’s return to office, the legal underpinnings of corporate diversity initiatives were being tested. A federal appeals court ruling in late 2024 invalidated Nasdaq’s diversity rules for listed companies, undermining one of the most prominent regulatory efforts to formalize boardroom inclusion. The decision, analyzed in detail by The New York Times, was widely read as a judicial rebuke to what critics described as quota-like mechanisms that lacked firm statutory grounding.

More recently, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has intensified its scrutiny of diversity-oriented hiring practices, questioning whether efforts to recruit Black and Hispanic professionals at elite law firms might have crossed into discriminatory territory against white candidates. The agency’s investigation into Nike for alleged “systemic” race-based discrimination has further underscored the legal vulnerabilities of corporate D.E.I. frameworks. In this climate of regulatory skepticism, Goldman’s decision to abandon explicit diversity criteria for board evaluation appears less like an isolated volte-face and more like a preemptive legal maneuver, designed to insulate the firm from the growing risk of litigation and regulatory rebuke.

The bank’s spokesperson, Jennifer Zuccarelli, sought to strike a conciliatory tone in acknowledging the changes. The decision, she insisted, did not signal a repudiation of the belief that diverse perspectives enrich corporate governance. Rather, Goldman continues to affirm, at least rhetorically, that successful boards benefit from a multiplicity of backgrounds and experiences. The distinction, subtle yet consequential, lies in the shift from formalized criteria to a more discretionary, arguably less enforceable, commitment to diversity as an abstract principle.

This recalibration arrives at a moment of institutional introspection for Goldman’s board, which is slated to formalize the change when it convenes this week. The meeting carries additional resonance, as it follows the board’s recent deliberations over the resignation of the firm’s general counsel, Kathryn Ruemmler, whose departure was precipitated by revelations concerning her past association with Jeffrey Epstein. The convergence of governance reform and reputational turbulence underscores the degree to which Goldman finds itself navigating a fraught corporate landscape, where ethical commitments, legal exposure, and public scrutiny are in constant tension.

The National Legal and Policy Center, for its part, has framed its engagement with Goldman as part of a principled campaign against what it regards as discriminatory corporate orthodoxy. At the bank’s annual shareholder meeting last year, the group’s associate director, Luke Perlot, publicly lauded Goldman for having taken “meaningful steps” to roll back D.E.I. programs. Yet even as the bank acceded to certain demands, it resisted others. Shareholders overwhelmingly rejected a proposal to eliminate diversity-related compensation goals for senior executives, a vote that The New York Times report described as a telling indication of the limits of shareholder appetite for wholesale dismantling of inclusion initiatives.

The broader implications of Goldman’s decision extend beyond the immediate question of board composition. As The New York Times has observed in its ongoing coverage of corporate governance, the retreat from formal diversity mandates raises profound questions about the future of representation in corporate America. The dismantling of explicit criteria may alleviate legal exposure in the short term, but it risks entrenching the very patterns of homogeneity that earlier reforms sought to disrupt. Without formal mechanisms to counteract entrenched networks and biases, the pathways to boardroom inclusion may narrow once again, particularly for candidates from historically marginalized communities.

At the same time, critics of D.E.I. mandates argue that meritocratic principles are better served by eschewing identity-based criteria altogether. From this vantage point, Goldman’s move is framed not as a capitulation but as a return to neutral standards of evaluation. The New York Times has noted that this argument resonates with a segment of the public and political establishment that views the proliferation of diversity mandates as a distortion of equal opportunity rather than its fulfillment.

What emerges from this moment is a portrait of corporate America in ideological flux, caught between competing imperatives of inclusion, legal prudence, and political alignment. Goldman Sachs, long a bellwether of Wall Street culture, now finds itself emblematic of a broader recalibration that is reshaping boardrooms across the country. Whether this shift marks a transient adjustment to political headwinds or a more enduring transformation in corporate values remains an open question—one that The New York Times will undoubtedly continue to interrogate as the consequences of this quiet unraveling of diversity orthodoxy come into sharper relief.

In the final analysis, Goldman’s retreat from explicit diversity criteria is not merely a procedural adjustment but a symbolic inflection point in the evolving relationship between corporate governance and social policy. It reflects a moment in which the ideals that once animated a wave of reform are being reexamined under the pressures of legal contestation and political realignment. As the contours of this new era take shape, the legacy of the diversity mandates Goldman once championed will serve as a measure against which the future of corporate inclusion—and the sincerity of its remaining commitments—will inevitably be judged.