FIRST ON FOX: A new report looked at company statements, annual reports and other publicly available documents from every Fortune 500 company and found that virtually all of them have maintained their commitments to "diversity, equity and inclusion" (DEI) despite a trend of private companies relinquishing these commitments amid growing criticism.

Walmart, last week, became the latest major company to roll back its DEI commitments. The private sector's move away from such commitments, which include race-based hiring practices or other preferential treatment provided based on someone's immutable characteristics, has been strong enough that it spurred a cohort of 49 Democratic lawmakers in the House of Representatives to pen a letter several weeks ago to the country's Fortune 1000 companies, urging them not to give in to pressure to dismantle their DEI commitments. The lawmakers argued that such commitments help provide for a fairer shot at the American Dream for "everyone." 

The effort to ensure that "everyone" is given a fair shot is a main reason why Walmart decided to begin rolling back some of its commitments.

"Our purpose, to help people save money and live better, has been at our core since our founding 62 years ago and continues to guide us today," Joe Pennington, the director of Walmart's global press office, told Fox News Digital. "We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect, but every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers and to be a Walmart for everyone."     

While pressure on private companies to relinquish their DEI commitments has yielded some change, 485 of the country's 500 largest companies continue to maintain some form of DEI commitment, according to a new report from the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

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Researchers spent weeks combing through various documents and communications belonging to all of these companies, and developed a user-friendly database so that readers can see the commitments for themselves.

Jonthan Butcher, the report's lead author, told Fox News Digital that he thinks public pressure is very influential when it comes to getting private companies to relinquish what he described as discriminatory DEI commitments. Sources familiar with Walmart's decision to roll back their DEI policies indicated that public pressure, in addition to feedback from customers and associates, was an aspect that spurred some of the company's changes.

"I think that when the pressure has been applied one by one … businesses recognize that when they're called out, they don't have any way to defend themselves and say, 'Well, what we're really doing is wholesome.' No one has tried to say that," Butcher said. "Instead, they've simply backed away. And appropriately so."

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Some of the major companies highlighted in Butcher's report include Nike and UnitedHealth Group. 

Nike, for example, was found to have a page on its website about "representation and pay" that asserts, "NIKE is focused on its workforce representation, starting with women globally and racial and ethnic minorities in the United States." Meanwhile, UnitedHealth Group states on its "People & Culture" webpage that the company strives to provide patients with "culturally relevant care" and seeks to "advance a diverse health care workforce." 

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Fox News Digital reached out to both Nike and UnithedHealth Group for comment but did not receive a response.

Butcher ultimately said he believes Americans are waking up to the racially discriminatory elements of DEI practices, noting that the point of his research is to continue leveraging that momentum.

On Tuesday, the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released presidentially-mandated guidance that lays out how schools' use of artificial intelligence (AI) can be discriminatory toward minority and transgender students, "likely" opening them up to federal investigations.

President Biden signed Executive Order 14110 last year mandating that the Education Department develop resources, policies and guidance regarding AI in schools to help ensure responsible and non-discriminatory use, "including the impact AI systems have on vulnerable and underserved communities."

"The growing use of AI in schools, including for instructional and school safety purposes, and AI’s ability to operate on a mass scale can create or contribute to discrimination," the Education Department's guidance states. "This resource provides information regarding federal civil rights laws in OCR’s jurisdiction and includes examples of types of incidents that could, depending on the facts and circumstances, present OCR with sufficient reason to open an investigation." 

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The first seven examples laid out in the guidance were scenarios where AI could potentially deny benefits, unfairly single out students or exclude them based on race, color or national origin. 

One scenario suggested that a plagiarism checker, run using generative AI with "a high error rate when evaluating essays written by non-native English speakers," could be racist, unbeknownst to a teacher. Nonetheless, if the school continues using the racist plagiarism checker after students and parents complain, it could "likely" lead to a federal civil rights investigation, the guidance states. 

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Another example suggested that schools using AI to determine appropriate disciplinary procedures for students could also be exhibiting a racial bias.

"Significant disparities by race have persisted in the school’s application of student discipline, and Black students are disciplined more frequently and more harshly than other similarly situated students of another race," the guidance reads. "As a result, the historic school discipline data that the software relies on reflects the school’s discriminatory disciplinary practices."

Other sections of the guidance touched on how AI could lead to sex discrimination, with one of the examples detailing a scenario in which AI could discriminate against students who do not conform to traditional gender norms. The scenario suggested that schools using facial recognition software to check students into school could improperly flag students as a security risk because "they do not conform to the technology’s assumptions as to what girls and boys should look like, based on the sex specified in their school records."

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The guidance notes that students who are falsely flagged can be subjected to "embarrassment and missed class time," and if administrators are "aware of the problem" but continue to use the screening software anyway, it could result in a Title IX violation and a likely investigation by civil rights officers.

Challenging discrimination within AI has been a focal point for the Biden administration, with top leaders at the Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission pledging in April of last year that they would begin using existing federal civil rights and consumer protection laws to crack down on AI systems that are discriminatory.

Those calls from leaders within the Biden administration preceded the president's October 2023 executive order mandating various initiatives to root out discrimination in AI, including Tuesday's published guidance from the Department of Education.

President-elect Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he would be nominating former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon to be the next leader of the Department of Education. 

The Department of Education did not supply Fox News Digital with any on-the-record comments prior to publication of this story.