Disney Drops 'Diversity,' More DEI Terminology, For First Time In Six Years

Is The Walt Disney Company finally learning its lesson?

The once-dominant entertainment industry giant has been on a significant losing streak, as self-inflicted wounds have lessened their brand prestige and created major financial issues. This culminated in yet another disappointing earnings result this week, sending their stock price tumbling. 

For example, while the S&P 500 has increased roughly 71 percent since March 2021, Disney is down 46 percent in the same time frame. Not the best look for CEO Bob Iger. 

RELATED: Disney Stock Gets Hit Again, Cementing Years Of Self-Inflicted Financial Problems

There are various reasons for this decline, but one of the most obvious is that Disney abandoned what made it a special, unique company over the decades. An unapologetically patriotic, completely uncontroversial film studio that made films with the broadest possible appeal. Instead, it became a bastion of left-wing politics and ideology. It infested every aspect of the business, to the point where corporate executives instructed cast members to call visitors "friends" instead of "ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls." 

Unsurprisingly, it hasn't worked. But a recent corporate report might indicate that they've finally learned their lesson and abandoned the progressive politics that ruined a great company.

Disney CEO Bob Iger, speaking in front of a Disney+ advertisement. (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Disney)

Disney Drops Progressive Language

For the first time since 2019, Disney removed all references to "diversity" and other "diversity, equity, and inclusion" related language from its business report.

As Fox Business covered, "In the company's 2025 Form 10-K filed after its recent Q4 meeting, the words ‘diversity,’ ‘inclusion,’ ‘DEI’ or 'diversity, equity and inclusion,' appeared zero times. While the term 'equity' appeared about 130 times, it was only used in a financial context.

By contrast, the company's 2024 SEC filing included a dedicated section on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)."

Earlier in 2025, Disney also dropped several DEI programs from its SEC report. The two initiatives, "Reimagine Tomorrow" and "The Disney Look," had been proudly referenced by Disney repeatedly in previous years. One 2022 meeting of the "Reimagine Tomorrow" program led to headlines after one executive proudly bragged about her "not-at-all-secret gay agenda" on the call.

Between this language shift and the end of DEI programs, that's real, significant progress. 

What Disney seems to finally be learning is that none of this progressive pandering has any financial benefit whatsoever. The audience who wants to be referred to as "friends," or who cares about discriminatory "DEI" programs is vanishingly small. And despite the rise of stunted "Disney adults," their core audience is still Middle-American families, even if those families live on the coasts. 

That's who they have always appealed to, and who they always should appeal to. It's the lesson Cracker Barrel learned, that Bud Light learned. It's overly simplistic and oft-repeated, but there remains substantial truth to go woke, go broke. Maybe Disney's finally sick of going broke.