Goldman Sachs is preparing to remove race, gender, and sexual orientation as factors in evaluating candidates for its board of directors, eliminating explicit diversity, equity, and inclusion criteria from the governance committee’s guidelines. In Lower Manhattan, where the firm is a major employer and a prominent Wall Street institution, the decision is expected to draw attention from investors, advocacy groups, and local residents who view the company as an industry bellwether.
According to The New York Times, Goldman reached a private agreement with the conservative shareholder group the National Legal and Policy Center. In that deal, the group agreed to pull a shareholder proposal and the bank agreed it would no longer factor race, gender or sexual orientation into its board evaluations. People familiar with the talks told reporters that the governance committee planned to remove an “other demographics” category that had captured those characteristics.
The National Legal and Policy Center, which holds a small stake in Goldman and has pressed similar efforts at other corporations, has struck comparable arrangements elsewhere, as per The Guardian. The group has also publicly filed proposals and statements urging companies to eliminate DEI-linked pay targets, as reflected in documents on its website.
Legal and political backdrop
The boardroom shift arrives against a legal and political backdrop that has weakened formal corporate DEI mandates. A White House executive order last year directed federal agencies to wind down certain DEI programs. In December, the full Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated Nasdaq’s “show-or-explain” board-diversity rule, as reported by The Washington Post. Together, those moves have given companies more leeway while shifting much of the practical pressure to shareholders and regulators.
Goldman had already begun trimming its public DEI commitments. The bank removed a dedicated diversity-and-inclusion section from an annual filing last year and ended an IPO underwriting policy that had targeted non-diverse boards. Executives have said the firm will keep looking for diverse talent even as it tweaks formal rules, CNBC reported. Civil-rights advocates and some investors have pushed back on rollbacks like this one, arguing that voluntary programs are not a true substitute for clear, enforceable standards.
What this means for boards and investors
Legal and governance experts say the immediate impact on board composition may be limited. Proxy advisors, big institutional funds and board-search firms still scrutinize demographic data and voluntary disclosures when they evaluate companies. Analysis from Covington & Burling of recent court rulings suggests that without exchange-level mandates, transparency and investor pressure will remain the primary tools for nudging boards toward diversity.
For New York and the area surrounding Goldman Sachs’s Battery Park City headquarters, the change reflects shifting corporate policies on board representation, even as companies continue to fund workforce initiatives. The firm’s public materials continue to highlight programs such as One Million Black Women, while it adjusts the formal criteria used in selecting board candidates.
