Trump DEI crackdown hit the boardroom. Now there are fewer women

Then came the backlash against diversity initiatives.

Today, women occupy just shy of 3 in 10 company board seats in the nation's largest companies, according to new data from 50/50 Women on Boards.

At the peak a year ago, women business leaders held 30.4% of board seats in the Russell 3000, a benchmark that tracks the 3,000 largest publicly traded U.S. companies.

Now their numbers slipped below the 30% threshold first reached in 2024, according to 50/50 Women on Boards’ latest Gender Diversity Index report prepared with data firm Equilar.

Women of color also lost ground. They held 7.3% of all board seats, down from 7.4% a year ago.

"Progress toward gender-balanced corporate boards is slowing and, in some areas, reversing," said Heather Spilsbury, CEO of 50/50 Women on Boards, a nonprofit that advocates for greater diversity on corporate boards.

Smaller share

Board members, who are appointed by the company and then voted on by the shareholders, hail from a wide range of industries and backgrounds. For women, these part-time gigs can confer prestige, power and a hefty paycheck.

Turnover on public company boards that average fewer than a dozen seats already was slow — about one seat a year.

According to Spilsbury, the number of new director appointments declined sharply in the first quarter, down from an average of 400 seats to closer to 200. At the same time, women were 22% of directors added to Russell 3000 boards, down from 30% in 2024 and about 40% in 2023.

"Fewer new board seats are being created and women are receiving a smaller share of those appointments than in prior years," Spilsbury said.

Trend reversal

Over the past decade, companies added more women in the face of pressure from institutional investors, regulators and states to diversify boardrooms. Today, nearly 6 in 10 Russell 3000 companies have three or more women on their boards.

But as the political climate shifted and anti-DEI pressure campaigns gained momentum, diversity policies for corporate boards vanished.

A federal appeals court blocked Nasdaq rules to increase boardroom diversity that required thousands of public companies that trade on the stock exchange to have at least one woman, person of color or LGBTQ+ member on their boards unless they explained why they did not.

Goldman Sachs ended a pledge to ensure diversity on the boards of companies it helps take public. California rules to boost the number of women, people of color and LGBTQ+ board members were struck down. Proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services stopped considering corporate directors' gender, race or ethnicity when making voting recommendations.

The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, abandoned a 30% target for diverse directors at S&P 500 companies. Mutual fund giant Fidelity stopped threatening to vote against directors on boards that were not diverse.

Four in 10 Russell 3000 companies have two or fewer women directors.

Parity elusive

As companies face "extraordinary uncertainty" from geopolitical unrest, economic volatility and the rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion, some corporate boards "may be defaulting to familiar profiles," such as current or former CEOs, putting women’s steady gains in jeopardy, Spilsbury said.

"Because women remain underrepresented in CEO roles, that approach can narrow the pathway for women. At the same time, the broader DEI environment may be making some companies less public or less intentional about diversity," she said.

With boards appointing fewer women and fewer members overall, the timeline to reaching gender parity could get even longer.

Equilar projected in 2025 that Russell 3000 boards will be half female by 2044, five years later than it projected in 2024. Between 2019 and 2022, the projection was 2030.

"My concern is that board diversity could regress at the exact moment companies need broader perspective and stronger oversight," Spilsbury said.