Google has ceased to automatically include cultural events such as Black History Month and Pride Month in its calendar. The change also affects other notable observances like Jewish Heritage, Indigenous Peoples Month, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage Month.
Google’s decision was confirmed by spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld, who explained that the company had previously attempted to manually incorporate a wide range of cultural events from around the world into its calendar. However, this approach became impractical due to scalability issues.
“Some years ago, the Calendar team started manually adding a broader set of cultural moments in a wide number of countries around the world. 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,” Cushman Veld noted. She also emphasised that users still have the option to add these important dates manually.
The change coincides with another recent modification—Google Maps now refers to the Gulf of Mexico as “Gulf of America” for U.S. users following an executive order from President Trump’s administration.
The timing of these changes aligns with trends in tech companies reassessing their diversity initiatives. Companies like Meta, Google, and Amazon are reevaluating or eliminating certain diversity programs—a move reflected in their financial filings where references to DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) are being reduced or removed altogether.