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Exclusive: Home Depot quietly removes DEI section from website

The section that for years was called “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” was replaced with “WeAreTHD.”

Home Depot recently took down the “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” page from its website (left) and replaced it with a page called “WeAreTHD” that makes no mention of diversity.

Home Depot recently took down the “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” page from its website (left) and replaced it with a page called “WeAreTHD” that makes no mention of diversity. Wayback Machine, Home Depot

4 min read

After months of pressure from conservative groups, much of it preceding President Trump’s January demand that all public agencies and private businesses dismantle their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, The Home Depot has quietly removed the section of its website that championed its commitment to DEI.

“We strive to ensure that our company culture maintains a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment so that we can attract and retain the best employees, amplify their unique experiences and ideas, and strengthen the communities where we operate,” begins a recently removed page from The Home Depot’s website with the heading “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.” “We believe this commitment has been a competitive advantage and key to our long-term success, which is why we continue to build a culture of understanding, acceptance, and appreciation.

The page, available now only through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, was taken down sometime after March 28, the last of 52 times since July 22, 2022, that the Wayback Machine had saved the page.

The page had been accessible through a “Responsibility” dropdown menu on Home Depot’s website and was called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”

Today the dropdown menu is called “Living our Values,” and has been replaced by a page called WeAreTHD. The WeAreTHD page has some of the same links to features about multicultural Home Depot employees as the one it replaced, but doesn’t use the words “diversity,” “education,” or “inclusion” or make even an oblique assertion about the value of DEI.

Far from the first sentence of the removed page’s passionate argument for diversity, the new page begins: “Our culture and our associates provide intangible and hard-to-replicate competitive advantages, which have been key to helping us navigate challenging market conditions.”

Retail Brew asked Home Depot to comment on why it took down its DEI page and whether this was a response to President Trump’s demand that companies end their DEI initiatives, and to clarify whether this means Home Depot is scrapping DEI.

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“We're proud to have a culture that welcomes everyone, and we believe it helps us achieve our business goals,” Sarah McDonald, a Home Depot spokesperson, responded in a written statement. “We’ve been using ‘WeAreTHD,’ which is a slogan that represents the welcoming culture we’ve built here. We remain committed to our core values and the needs of our business, empowering associates, driving innovation, and enriching our communities.”

“Key to our success”: Anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck, who drove much of the backlash that led Tractor Supply to reverse its DEI policies in June 2024, decried Home Depot’s “woke policies” in posts on X last August.

Unlike Target, which publicly announced it was rolling back its diversity efforts in January, Home Depot has made no such public announcement.

In March, Bloomberg Law reported that in its 10-K annual report to the SEC in March, Home Depot removed DEI language in a section called “Corporate Responsibility and Human Capital Management.”

In the March 2024 annual report, a passage with the heading “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” began with this sentence: “Guided by our core values and grounded in our culture, we believe that having a diverse, equitable, and inclusive Company is key to our success.”

It was replaced in the March 2025 annual report with the heading “Respect For All People” that began with this sentence: “We strive to maintain a culture that welcomes everyone, and we believe it helps us achieve our business goals by driving excellent customer service and innovation, empowering our associates to thrive and excel, and enriching the communities in which we operate.”

Editor’s note 5/7/25: Added Home Depot’s response to the originally published version.

Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know

Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.