Disney ‘diversity’ managers required employees to keep ‘virtue diaries’, says report

Diversity operatives at The Walt Disney Company have been requiring employees to log their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) activities in “virtue diaries” which affect their compensation, according to a report.

WDW Pro reported last week that according to information obtained from a Disney insider, employees have been expected to track their “virtuous” actions in journals which determine whether or not they receive bonuses, raises or even continue their employment.

“When performance reviews would come up, they would be expected to provide their own case for how they performed as far as the DEI metrics go. And so they would have to keep a journal of their DEI activities within the company and without in order to show their case for diversity, equity and inclusion,” investigative reporter Jonas Campbell said on the WDW Pro podcast Monday.

Disney’s totalitarian diversity culture was in large part created by former Disney Chief Diversity Officer Latondra Newton, who left the company in June. During her six-year tenure, Newton created the Reimagine Tomorrow initiative which made DEI a factor in the company’s hiring processes. Newton is also believed to have been a driving force in the company’s same-sex programming for children. In 2020, Newton further mandated DEI by tying it to employee compensation.

One of the internal documents WDW Pro obtained, titled “Ad Sales Incentive Compensation Plan,” lists “Champion Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” as one of the objectives an employee must achieve to qualify for full salary and bonuses. This includes personal participation in DEI trainings and “other initiatives,” sponsoring such initiatives, hosting “team-based discussions on inclusion” and other activities. DEI meetings at the company could reportedly last up to 30 meetings and were held bi-weekly.

During Women’s History Month, for example, at least 10 discussions were held to promote feminist ideology, which employees were expected to attend.

Under Newton, Disney’s “People Managers” were instructed to ensure that there was a “balanced” slate of applicants to open positions, even if the applicants did not meet position requirements. Certain skin colors, genitalia or sexual deviants were not only considered without qualifications, but were prioritized.

“They wiped out the people who might disagree with changing the company radically, they hired the people who would be most likely to agree with radical changes, and they subjected their employees to a pseudo-religious. . .DEI diary to attempt to abdicate themselves of their sins and become part of the Church of Wokeology,” said WDW Pro’s host.

Another document is a slide from a DEI training presentation which instructs employees how to properly respect Islam. During the fast of Ramadan, for example, it would be improper to empathize with a Muslim employee by saying “it must be so hard for you.” Instead, one must say, “I have so much admiration for your commitment to your faith.” Managers are instructed to attempt to give Muslims time off when requested. Notably, there are no such instructional slides for Judaism or Christianity.

It is unclear whether these policies ended with Newton's exit or are still in place.

Disney’s authoritarian DEI culture is not limited to its workforce — it is also foisted on advertisers. The corporation set a goal of $100 million in advertising for DEI and “multicultural” programming and demands that advertisers also commit to “inclusion” principles.

Disney’s DEI and gender confusion indoctrination of children has been a premeditated undertaking by Newton and other Disney executives. In a video posted by journalist Christopher Rufo in March 2022, Disney Television Animation Executive Producer Latoya Raveneau admitted to a “not-so-secret gay agenda” for children’s programming and “adding queerness” wherever she could.

“In my little pocket of Proud Family Disney TVA, the showrunners were super welcoming . . . to my not-at-all-secret gay agenda,” Raveneau said in a staff meeting. “Maybe it was that way in the past, but I guess something must have happened . . . and then like all that momentum that I felt, that sense of ‘I don’t have to be afraid to have these two characters kiss in the background.’ I was just, wherever I could, adding queerness. . . . No one would stop me, and no one was trying to stop me.”

That agenda, however, is regularly removed from Disney’s Chinese content to accommodate the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), to which Disney is known to be submissive.

Frontline News reported earlier this year that Disney cut an episode of The Simpsons from its Disney+ streaming platform in Hong Kong because the episode mentioned Chinese forced labor camps. The episode, titled “One Angry Lisa,” showed Marge Simpson attending a virtual bike class where the instructor said, “Behold the wonders of China: Bitcoin mines, forced labor camps where children make smartphones.”

That was the second time Disney removed an episode of The Simpsons from its platform for the CCP. In 2021, an episode which referenced the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square was also pulled.

In 2020 Disney thanked the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the credits for Mulan for allowing the company to shoot the film in China. Disney also thanked several government entities in Xinjiang, the province where the movie was filmed and also reported to host several Uyghur concentration camps. Mulan’s lead actress Liu Yifei voiced public and unapologetic support for Hong Kong police brutality against pro-democracy protesters.

Furthermore, in order to distribute the original 1998 cartoon version of Mulan to Chinese audiences, the CCP first made Disney jump through hoops. Disney was forced to first buy the rights to two Chinese foreign films, hire a Chinese performance group for the film’s European release and consider opening a theme park in China. Shanghai Disneyland opened in 2016.