Disney Executive Admits To Discriminating Against White Males While Hiring

In an undercover video, the Senior Vice President at The Walt Disney Company admits that the company uses discriminatory hiring processes.

(PLGNN) - Michael Giordano, the Senior Vice President of The Walt Disney Company, admitted in an undercover video that Disney does not hire white males. The video was captured by the O'Keefe Media Group, founded by James O'Keefe.

"Certainly, there have been times where there's no way we're hiring a white male for this," Giordano said. The undercover reporter suggests that this may be an "unspoken" agreement; however, Giordano shares that this has been directly stated in front of him.

Giordano also shares with the reporter that he believes these practices have harmed his chances at moving up at the company, saying, "As far as Disney is concerned, I'm a white male and that's not who they're looking to promote at the moment."

While talking about Disney's HR department, Giordano claims that the department said to him, "'Nobody else is going to tell you this, Mike, but they're not considering any white males for this job. They're just not.'"

Giordano goes on to say that it isn't just a matter of checking a box, and that mixed-race individuals have been passed over for not looking "black enough." "We wanted to hire somebody in the department a few years ago… who was half-black but didn't appear half-black," Giordano said. "They wanted someone in meetings who would appear a certain way and he wasn't going to bring that to the meeting."

Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, discrimination based on race or sex is illegal within the United States. This is stated in section 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), where it says, "It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."

The video was quickly spread around social media platforms such as X and garnered millions of views, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeting "Wow" and "This is messed up" in regards to the video.

James O'Keefe tweeted on X that "Disney sources inside the company are now contacting us on our signal lines..."

As of this article's publication, Disney has not issued a statement regarding the video; however, Giordano has deleted his LinkedIn profile.