Google has sparked outrage for dropping from the Google Calendar app cultural observances like Pride Month, Black History Month, Women’s History Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, and Indigenous Peoples Month.
Additional eliminated events include Jewish Heritage Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The significant changes came after Republican President Donald Trump's series of executive orders reversing "woke" initiatives and anti-discriminatory policies, namely diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, put in place by the former Democratic administration.
But the multinational corporation and tech company, known for its e-commerce, consumer electronics and once-powerful search engine, cited that the ever-increasing list of holiday events was too many to manage, and therefore, not "sustainable."
Google spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld explained the reasons for the changes, stating:
"For over a decade we’ve worked with timeanddate.com to show public holidays and national observances in Google Calendar."
"Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world."
Veld continued:
"We got feedback that some other events and countries were missing—and maintaining hundreds of moments manually and consistently globally wasn’t scalable or sustainable."
However, the internet is calling BS.
@Zoomer516/X
One user said that Google's changes were "shameful" and they accused its calendar of being utilized to "capitulate to fascism."
A user on X (formerly Twitter) noted that the only demographic he's witnessing who are happy about the changes are "white people."
Others continued expressing frustration over Google's reversal of progress in cultural representation.
Google also made changes to its geographical labels by renaming the Gulf of Mexico to "Gulf of America" for U.S. users to comply with Trump's executive order called "Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness."
@dianelyssa/X
The company defended the change and assured that "People using Maps in the U.S. will see 'Gulf of America,' and people in Mexico will see 'Gulf of Mexico.' Everyone else will see both names."
The spokesperson said that as of mid-2024, Google Calendar has returned to "showing only public holidays and national observances from timeanddate.com globally" and assured that users can manually add "other important moments."
Despite Google's erasure of identity and recognition observed by existing events, people are intent to keep the celebrations alive.
@danidannydanie1/X
Following Trump's executive order, Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered the Department of Justice to investigate companies with DEI initiatives “to end illegal discrimination and preferences.”
Google joins Meta, McDonald's, Walmart, Target, and others that have dropped DEI efforts by wiping mentions of DEI from annual reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission and stopping the hiring of employees from historically underrepresented communities.
