DEI and woke ideology are on life support under Trump's return to DC, but could come roaring back with rebrand

2025 brings Trump's crackdown on DEI policies, but Terry Schilling warns woke ideology could return through rebranding despite corporate rollbacks.

"DEI is still alive. It's not dead yet. It's bleeding, right? We've got blood here, but we know it's vulnerable," Terry Schilling, the president of conservative nonprofit and advocacy group the American Principles Project, told Fox News Digital in a December Zoom interview. "But they're still in charge of the admissions offices and colleges. They're still in charge of HR departments, and they're still largely a part of Silicon Valley."

American Principles Project has documented the cultural shifts in recent years to embrace DEI initiatives, which conservatives argue replace merit with race and identity preferences that effectively penalize some Americans at work and at school through the expansion of bureaucracy and ideological pressure. Schilling said that while the "woke" push seen under the Biden era is retreating under the Trump administration, it is still alive and could make a return.