As Trump attacks diversity, Hamilton vows to “just keep fighting”

Lewis Hamilton has vowed to “just keep fighting” as United States president Donald Trump’s administration clamps down on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programs.

Over the first month of his second presidency, Trump has made dismantling DEI initiatives a priority with a slate of executive orders.

Decisions made since 20 January include banning words such as ‘disability’, ‘ethnicity’, ‘gender’ or ‘women’ from some government websites and reviewing research grants that feature any of those words; threatening to pull federal funding from organizations, including schools and colleges, unless they end programs geared towards minorities, inclusive of disabled people; ordering army, sports, bathroom and visa bans for transgender people.

Hamilton, who has been an advocate for Black and LGBTQ+ communities in the Formula 1 paddock, has been watching those developments with concern, but says he remains as committed as ever to his ideals.

“I’m not going to change what [Trump] does, or the government does – all I can do is try to make sure that in my space, in my environment, I’m trying to elevate people,” Hamilton told Time magazine.

Donald Trump, 45th President of the United States

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

“There’s going to be forces along the way that don’t want that, for whatever reason I can’t fathom. That doesn’t stop me. It is a fight that we’ll just keep fighting.”

Hamilton’s fight ramped up in 2020 after he noticed how few people from minority backgrounds featured on the 2019 end-of-season Mercedes team photo, which led him to start up the Hamilton Commission, a program to improve representation in motorsport.

The following year, Hamilton launched Mission 44, whose goal has been to “support, champion and empower young people from underrepresented groups to succeed, by narrowing opportunity gaps across society”.

In 2020, racial minorities represented just 3% of the Mercedes squad’s workforce, compared to 18% of the population of England in the 2021 census. Hamilton pushed the team to launch the Accelerate 25 program, which committed the team to hiring people of color at a 25% rate until 2025.

“I did think, oh my God, I’ve finally got a more diverse working environment we’ve built over time. And now I’m going back to the beginning of my time with Mercedes, where it wasn’t diverse,” the new Ferrari driver said.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Kym Illman – Getty Images

Under Hamilton’s impetus, the Scuderia did sign a diversity and inclusion charter in November 2024.

However, having experienced discrimination in Italy when he was younger, the Briton is all too aware of the racism that persists in some parts of Italian society, particularly in sporting stadiums – just last year, soccer players Mike Maignan and Romelu Lukaku were targeted by monkey noises on separate occasions in the top-flight Serie A championship.

“I’m not going to lie, it definitely crossed my mind when I was thinking about my decision,” Hamilton admitted. “Like in so many things, it’s often such a small group of people that set that trend for many. I don’t think it’s going to be a problem.”

The passion surrounding his Ferrari debut seems to be proving him right.