NEW YORK — Major League Baseball removed references to “diversity” from its MLB Careers home page following an executive order by President Donald Trump that could lead to possible federal action against organizations using DEI programs in violation of his administration’s interpretation of civil rights law.
“Our values on diversity remain unchanged,” MLB said in a statement Friday. “We are in the process of evaluating our programs for any modifications to eligibility criteria that are needed to ensure our programs are compliant with federal law as they continue forward.”
The removal of the references was first reported by journalist Craig Calcaterra on his newsletter website cupofcoffeenews.com.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who launched a Diversity Pipeline Program in 2016, said after an owners meeting in Palm Beach, Fla., last month that MLB was evaluating the interpretation of law coming from the federal government.
“Our values, particularly our values on diversity, remain unchanged, but another value that is pretty important to us is we always try to comply with what the law is,” he said. “There seems to be an evolution going on here. We’re following that very carefully. Obviously, when things get a little more settled, we’ll examine each of our programs and make sure that while the values remain the same that we’re also consistent with what the law requires.”
