Disney: no way we are hiring a white male

Disney VP Takes Leave of Absence After Date with Undercover Reporter for James O'Keefe
JOHN SEXTON 6:00 PM | June 21, 2024


James O'Keefe released his latest undercover report yesterday, this one featuring a senior VP at Disney who spilled the beans on the company's DEI hiring practices.

Michael Giordano went on a date arranged though an online service and got a lot more than he bargained for. His date was working for O'Keefe and prompted him with questions about what DEI looks like behind the scenes. Giordana said he'd personally applied for many jobs during his 11 years at the company and has seen more diverse candidates with less experience get the promotions. He says one of his friends in HR told him, "Look, nobody else is going to tell you this, Mike, but they're not considering any white males for this job. They just aren't."

But Giordano wasn't the only person who missed out because of race. He told a story about a candidate for a promotion who was mixed race, with one black parent and one white parent. He described this person as "half-black but didn't appear half-black." Giordano says a creative executive at the company interceded, saying something like "that's not what's wanted." He added, "They wanted somebody in meetings who would appear a certain way and he wasn't gonna bring that to the meeting."

When it comes to casting their TV projects, Giordano said the company was very careful about what was said openly but suggested there were codes used to indicated what the bosses wanted to see. For instance, saying that they wanted something other than the usual suspects. But at times, Giordano said they were more blunt and simply said something like, "There's no way we're hiring a white male." Giordano predicts that at some point there will be a lawsuit over these practices.

Here's O'Keefe's full report, the first of what he's calling the Disney Tapes.


Personally I'm glad O'Keefe keeps digging into these sort of stories, stories the company would flatly deny if asked. It's important to know just how far the pendulum has swung inside these companies in the direction of illegal racial discrimination against certain demographics. But there is zero appetite to dig into this behavior by our national media because they support it and are probably doing some of the same things, though again they would flatly deny it if asked.

All of that said, I can't help feeling sorry for Michael Giordano who is reportedly now on leave.

I’m hearing that Giordano, who just deleted his LinkedIn account, has been told by Disney to take a “leave of absence” after this video came out. I’d be shocked if they don’t just quietly fire him for these comments.

Giordano didn't do anything wrong here. He was just honest about his experience and, unfortunately for him, being honest about these issues is a career death sentence at Disney or probably any other big company in Hollywood. The number one unspoken rule is that you do not talk about the company's progressive secrets outside the progressive bubble. He'll now join other outcasts from academia like Bret Weinstein, formerly of Evergreen State College, Peter Boghossian, formerly of Portland State, and Jordan Peterson. The difference is that each of those people made a choice to speak up publicly, Giordano was presumably just looking for a date with a pretty girl.

I'm sure he will be quietly fired sometime soon and then he'll be replaced by someone who is well aware of what happens when you speak out of turn at Disney. The need for progressive omerta will be reinforced without Disney having to say a thing.