German software giant SAP will cut several of its diversity programmes to abide by new requirements of the US administration, a spokesman told AFP on Sunday, confirming reports in the local press.
Since assuming office in January, US President Donald Trump has declared “woke” programmes promoting diversity and inclusion illegal, threatening legal action against US and foreign businesses who enforce them.
Germany’s chamber of commerce and industry, the DIHK, has said that several German businesses have received letters from the US embassy on the matter.
US embassies in Berlin and Paris have said they would not verify if companies were following the rules, but needed certain companies to self-certify compliance.
Designed to provide opportunities for people of colour, women and other historically excluded groups, DEI programmes have drawn the wrath of Trump and his followers, who say they are discriminatory and incompatible with meritocracy.
Germany’s SAP, which offers both traditional software and cloud-based computing services, will abandon its goal of having women account for 40 percent of its employee pool, according to an internal email first reported by the Handelsblatt newspaper and confirmed by a SAP spokesman.
Quotas for having women in management posts will no longer be applied in the US, where SAP employs some 17,000 people, 16 percent of its total workforce.
The Walldorf-based group will no longer take into consideration diversity between men and women as part of directors’ salaries and its diversity and inclusion department will be fused with another, according to the reports.
SAP has a workforce of around 120,000 employees worldwide.
In a statement Friday, the company said that it “aims to create an inclusive workplace” while “conforming fully with legal requisites in each country where it operates”.
The move by SAP follows a similar one taken in April by T-Mobile, the American subsidiary of Germany’s Deutsche Telekom.