The Latest in DEI Fails: Walmart, Netflix, and Wells Fargo

With the expansion of DEI efforts and commitments, we’ve seen a hodgepodge of superficial, underwhelming, and performative attempts by companies to improve (or appear to improve) diversity, equity, and inclusion. While some companies have made genuine efforts, others failed so badly that they would have been better off doing nothing.

Most recently, Walmart, Netflix, and Wells Fargo faced backlash from consumers and employees for their mishandled approaches. These are more than DEI missteps. They’re cultural failures that exposed each company to reputational and financial risk.

Walmart: The Pitfall of Performative Gestures

In 2022, Walmart released a Juneteenth-themed ice cream under its Great Value brand — a move widely criticized as tone-deaf and derivative of Creamalicious, a Black-owned brand (founder, Liz Rogers). Walmart pulled the product and apologized, but provided no explanation or credible follow-up.

2025 Update: Performative gestures without cultural awareness don’t strengthen brand trust. They signal risk. For Walmart, the issue wasn’t ice cream. It was leadership blind spots and a lack of accountability for decisions that impact both employees and customers.

Netflix: The Cost of Short-Term Thinking

Following the murder of George Floyd, Netflix announced it would commit $100 million to DEI commitments. Yet by 2022, as profits dropped, it laid off 150 workers and contractors, many from underrepresented groups. Former employees described themselves as “diversity hires” discarded when times got tough.

2025 Update: DEI fails when framed as a PR initiative. And when employees feel expendable, they will not hesitate to throw you under the bus. Culture must be tied to strategy, and more importantly, the 3R's: Revenue, Reputation and Retention. Netflix’s layoffs created a trust gap that no pledge can repair.

Wells Fargo:

The New York Times reported Wells Fargo conducted sham interviews with diverse applicants to satisfy a Rooney Rule-style policy. When a former executive objected, he was fired. Combined with higher mortgage rejection rates for Black applicants, Wells Fargo revealed systemic issues that still linger.

2025 Update: Fake compliance isn’t neutral — it’s toxic. It erodes credibility, invites regulators, and creates direct financial risk. Wells Fargo’s pattern shows what happens when leadership ignores culture as an enterprise risk category.

DEI can certainly be challenging, but mistakes like these are simply unacceptable and should, at this point, be obsolete. If a DEI program or policy is doing more harm than good, it’s time for a major overhaul.

The DEI Fail

These failures serve as case studies in cultural mismanagement. Each brand paid in customer trust, employee engagement, and investor confidence.

If your organization is still treating DEI as a stand-alone initiative instead of embedding culture into risk management, you’re setting yourself up for the same headlines.

2025 Update: The Quiet Retreat From DEI

Since this article was first written, something telling has happened: Walmart, Netflix, and

Wells Fargo have all scaled back or erased DEI commitments from their websites and public communications.

• Walmart: After backlash over performative gestures, Walmart has shifted focus away from DEI language, replacing it with broader “community” and “opportunity” language.

• Netflix: Its $100M DEI commitment made headlines in 2020, but by 2023–2024, DEI references quietly disappeared from investor updates and executive messaging.

• Wells Fargo: Already under fire for sham interviews and biased lending, Wells Fargo has now stripped most DEI language from its site altogether.

The cautionary lesson for CEOs: DEI never became embedded in business. When markets shifted and backlash mounted, companies abandoned it instead of fixing the root problem.

That’s what happens when culture isn’t managed as risk: initiatives disappear, trust collapses, and leaders scramble to rebrand.

Next Steps

Culture is a measurable business risk that affects Revenue, Reputation, and Retention.

Get FIG’s 7-Step Culture Risk Audit to identify your cultural vulnerabilities before they cost millions.

Or Request an Executive Briefing with our president, TaChelle Lawson.