A video secretly recorded by O'Keefe Media Group has shaken the Walt Disney Company over confessions of discrimination against white men within the corporation. Michael Giordano, a senior vice president at Disney, was recorded exposing internal practices that discriminate against people based on their race and gender.

Giordano claimed during the video that colleagues in the human resources department revealed to him that Disney is not considering white men for certain key positions. "They’re not considering any white males for the job," Giordano mentioned in the recording made by an undercover reporter from O'Keefe Media Group.

In addition, the senior vice president noted that being a white male has limited his ability to advance within the company. "As far as Disney is concerned, I am a white male and that’s not who they’re looking to promote at the moment," Giordano said.

Giordano also mentioned a specific incident where a biracial person was passed over for a promotion because he did not meet certain African-American standards desired by the company's creative executives.

The video further revealed that Disney uses "code words and buzzwords" to describe the candidates they are looking for, apparently as a strategy to avoid lawsuits related to their hiring practices.

According to the O'Keefe Media Group, Disney awards incentives to executives based on whether they recruited enough employees from non-white backgrounds. This adds another layer of controversy to allegations of discrimination.

These allegations against Disney come in a broader context of companies facing similar criticism. Recently, the Missouri attorney general announced a lawsuit against IBM for allegedly discriminating against whites, Asians and men in its hiring policies. In addition, other companies, such as NASCAR and Oracle, have been accused of discriminatory practices in their internship and scholarship programs.

Previous history and criticism

This is not the first time Disney has faced accusations of racial discrimination. In 2020, an internal document was leaked detailing the standards used by Walt Disney Co. during the recruitment and promotion process. It shows how Disney is allegedly imposing specific criteria on its staff that focus on the forced inclusion of employees from "underrepresented groups."

Elon Musk offered legal support to discriminated Disney employees

Earlier this year, Elon Musk, the well-known billionaire investor, publicly criticized Disney's hiring parameters and announced his willingness to cover the legal expenses of Disney employees who feel they have been discriminated against by the company or its subsidiaries, such as ABC, ESPN and Marvel, among others.