The Knight Foundation scrubs DEI section from its ‘About’ page
One of the biggest funders of nonprofit journalism in the U.S. no longer publicly lists an explicit section about “diversity, equity, and inclusion” on its mission page.
The Knight Foundation has edited its “About” page to remove its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) section, according to archives obtained through the Wayback Machine.
The section was still up until at least Sep. 17, which is when the last Wayback Machine snapshot was taken. By the end of October, the foundation’s explicit commitment to DEI had disappeared from the page.
Up to Sep. 17, the section claimed that “diversity, equity, and inclusion are core to [the Knight Foundation’s] work as a social investor.” The foundation is one of the biggest funders of nonprofit journalism in the country, and in 2023, invested $43 million dollars on journalism grants, according to the foundation’s latest financial statement.
Knight Foundation’s current “About” page still expresses the belief “in the power of diverse perspectives to foster positive change and build stronger, more equitable, and inclusive communities,” but the section title and explicit mention of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is no longer present. A photo showing students of color discussing first amendment rights at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., on April 2, 2016, was also removed.
This has not been an isolated incident among other organizations in journalism and nonprofits at large as they respond to the current administration’s attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, initially established during the 1960s civil rights movement to push back against segregation. A recent report by ProPublica identified more than 1,000 nonprofits that removed DEI efforts from the mission statements in their tax filings.
Elsewhere in the Knight Foundation website, the organization says it “has intentionally sought diversity in the ownership of the asset management firms where it invests,” with 36% of its endowments being invested in firms that are “substantially- or majority-owned by women or minorities.”
The Objective reached out to the Knight Foundation for comment about the change to their website’s About page but received no response.
Since taking office in January, the Trump administration has prioritized targeting DEI policies, originally introduced under former President John F. Kennedy starting in 1961 to ensure that government contractors “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin”.
In his first few days in office, Trump issued executive orders calling for the “ending of wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing,” threatening the loss of federal funding at nonprofits retaining said programs, and an end to “illegal discrimination” to restore “merit-based opportunity.”
The Knight Foundation does not receive federal grants, as the organization’s main revenue stream comes from endowment investments. The Objective also reached out to the foundation to ask if it will no longer fund projects centering marginalized communities, but received no response.
One executive director, Casey, who is using a pseudonym in this story to protect future funding relationships of their organization, said they were “ghosted” by the Knight Foundation this summer — even after building a relationship for two years. Casey’s nonprofit newsroom covers news for marginalized communities.
“We had two meetings and exchanged emails regularly back and forth,” Casey told The Objective. “Then it was between May and July that we were ghosted.”
The next email Casey received was a rejection of their grant proposal. The rejection, which Casey read to The Objective during their interview, was generic and made no mention of DEI, but the timing still felt suspicious to the executive director.
The Knight Foundation is likely not the only philanthropic fund that has quietly changed their mission to avoid potential legal pitfalls due to Trump’s backlash on DEI. According to Nieman Lab, America’s largest newspaper chain, Gannett, modified its corporate website to remove any mention of diversity and will no longer be publishing its workforce demographic data.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has called Trump’s executive orders part of a strategy to “bully everyone into dropping programs that ensure equitable workplaces by falsely equating diversity efforts with discrimination.”
“However, no court has declared DEIA efforts inherently illegal, and President Trump cannot override decades of legal precedent,” ReNika Moore, director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice program, wrote.
The Knight Foundation’s work may not have shifted: Knight recently awarded a $5 million grant to URL Media to scale its work for sustainable Black and Brown community media.
Casey acknowledges foundations may be changing “public-facing terminology”, while “still doing what they can in regards to DEI. “They’re doing it for safety on the outside because even though some of these foundations don’t get federal funding, they’re still in the crosshairs.”
But potential philanthropic pullback may continue to trickle down and impact nonprofit newsrooms like Casey’s intended to serve marginalized communities. A recent small survey of Institute of Nonprofit News member organizations found “several news leaders shared that, without an immediate injection of funds, their outlets could close by the end of the year — if not sooner.”
If you have a story to share about how journalism funders have responded to the current climate of attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion, contact Nicole Froio at nicolefroio@gmail.com or nicolefroio.57 on Signal.
Nicole Froio is a Brazilian-Colombian journalist and feminist cultural critic currently working in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
This story was edited by James Salanga. Copy editing by Jen Ramos Eisen.
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