What you need to know
- Google seems to have deleted several important dates from the official holiday list on the Google Calendar.
- This move was made late last year and has been spotted by people since the new year began. Events like Black History Month, Indigenous People Month, Jewish Heritage, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage are no longer included.
- Google said it wasn't feasible to put several moments into everyone's calendar and took a more consistent approach by showing only public holidays and observances from timeanddate.com.
Google seems to be doing some damage control after it deleted several cultural events from its official holiday list on the Google Calendar. Even though this move was made last year in 2024, several users took notice of it now and were left disappointed by this move. Black History Month, Indigenous People Month, Jewish Heritage, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and Hispanic Heritage have also been removed, according to a Google product expert (as spotted by The Verge).
While this may just seem like any other update that Google tends to make, without announcing the change it seems like it didn't want to grab a lot of attention when the move was made. Several users took to the Calendar's help page to express their concerns on the issue, and probably find out why Google chose to make this move without giving them a heads up.
But Google does have its side of the story. Earlier, the Calendar team relied on a manual approach to fill out important dates and events. This meant the team had to seive through and enter each event while keeping in mind the cultural celebrations across numerous countries. According to the company, this time-consuming process resulted in some events being missed, which highlighted a need for a more streamlined approach.
In a statement to The Verge, Google’s spokesperson Madison Cushman Veld said, "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," Veld added.
Google only put out a public statement on Feb. 12, following some backlash it received. It said that it wasn't "feasible to put hundreds of moments in everyone’s calendars." And that by showing only public holidays and observances from timeanddate.com it will be more consistent with other online calendar providers. However, it has left the calendar open for those who'd like to add holidays/events manually.
Why this move seems off
Google may have removed significant events like Black History Month, Pride Month, and others, but this has sparked a debate not just for me, but others too on representation and visibility. As someone who lives in Toronto, Canada, I've been exposed to enough diversity, and to understand and experience different holidays that are so important to the North American community is not only a privilege but also comes as a reminder for me to be an ally.
While Google may push it off by stating sustainability reasons, it comes off as the company valuing efficiency over cultural sensitivity. In a community support thread, one user wrote:
"What benefits do you get from seeing marginalized communities suffer? That is disrespectful and sadistic. I hope you change ... not recognizing the hard work of these kinds of communities for rights, equality, and recognition."
While another wrote: "By removing Black History Month, Pride, and Women's History Month -and others - GOOGLE is attempting to delegitimize these designated months. It seems cowardly - and backward. What is GOOGLE afraid of?"
This move even though made late last year, came as a surprise to many seeing the change in the new calendar year when users noticed the events missing in both desktop and mobile apps. This made them believe that it could be an impact of recently inaugurated President Donald Trump's executive order that overturned diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
Following this, several companies, including Google, said it was reviewing some diversity initiatives and effectively removing its goal to hire more employees from underrepresented groups. This is surprising since Google prides itself on hiring people from underrepresented groups for more than a decade now. But in a recent 10-K report that Alphabet filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Google effectively omitted this line“committed to making diversity, equity, and inclusion part of everything we do and to growing a workforce that is representative of the users we serve.”
With the already sensitive political scenario in the U.S., this move from Google tipped the scales, making it a little more difficult for these communities to feel seen according to many users.
A possible workaround
There seems to be no end to this debate, while Google tried to justify its move by stating that, as a company, it continues to celebrate and promote a variety of cultural moments across its products. Additionally, it said that Google Calendar is customizable, so users can go into their calendars and add all the important events, just like they would to a friend's birthday or an upcoming meeting, the company argues.
The tech giant also confirms that these changes will not affect other cultural acknowledgments, such as Google Doodles, which frequently remind users about important dates and events.
But it misses the point. The question isn't about personalization, it is more about collectively acknowledging these events on a larger scale and showing allyship with the people who've contributed to the betterment of these marginalized communities.
Some users have simply decided to boycott Google Calendar as their first choice, in a digital protest so to speak, while some continue to advocate on these community threads for people to add these events manually to their calendars.
