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Google has removed Pride month and other important cultural heritage holidays from Google Calendar, used by over 500 million people.
The resource provides standard scheduling services along with tools to help users define goals and accomplish their objectives. The Verge first broke the story Feb. 7 against the backdrop of an executive order from President Donald Trump targeting DEI initiatives, though executives told the outlet changes began mid-2024.
The Verge identified key holidays and events that have been removed from the 2025 Google Calendar. While Pride month was one of such events, “Black History Month, Indigenous People Month, Jewish Heritage, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage have also been removed,” they reported.
Google spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld stated to the Verge that while the Google team had initially been manually adding each event into their system, “maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable.” To preserve sustainability, the Google team began “showing only public holidays and national observances from timeanddate.com globally, while allowing users to manually add other important moments,” Cushman Veld shared.
“The move comes amid a broader cultural and political debate about the value of policies on diversity, equity and inclusion,” Newsweek also reported. Upon his return to office, Trump has signed executive orders seeking to “dismantle federal DEI programs,” which he called “radical and wasteful,” according to the outlet.
Google is not the only company to step away from DEI. Newsweek lists Meta, McDonald’s, Walmart and Target, among others. Google has stepped back from its diversity hiring goals.
“One of this country’s greatest strengths is its diversity—and the rise of Christian nationalism, white supremacy and political leaders strong-arming this kind of exclusion should alarm all of us,” Cathy Renna, director of communications of the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund told Newsweek. “Google will be on the wrong side of history for this and any other actions that bow to the extremism of the Trump administration.”
