Austin, Texas - Shockwaves from the Donald Trump administration's campaign against pro-diversity policies and its harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric were felt throughout the South By Southwest festival, the sprawling arts and tech event long known for championing progressive values.

Since taking office, Donald Trump's hard-right White House has delivered a series of executive orders demanding that agencies across the federal government remove all references to policies meant to facilitate the hiring of women, people of color, or those with disabilities.

The campaign, which has seen the Pentagon's Black joint chief of staff asked to leave office, has also been mirrored by some of the country's biggest companies, including certain tech giants, who are dismantling departments dedicated to promoting workplace diversity.

These harsh anti-progressive policies cast a shadow over this year's SXSW, the 37-year-old festival that transforms downtown Austin, Texas, with offerings of music, cinema, and technology talks.

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The event typically attracts hundreds of thousands of forward-thinking creative professionals from around the world.

"It feels like we're being crushed and that any good, human, normal business policies are just being thrown out the window. I find it terrifying. We're living in a dystopia," said Kerrie Finch, a European-based communications consultant that works with US companies.

"Dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion harms everyone because diversity means all people," US Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley told an audience.

"It means women. It means disabled people. It means people in rural communities. It means veterans. It means people of color," she added.

Pressley has been one of Washington's most vocal critics of rolling back diversity policies, many of which emerged from the Black Lives Matter movement that reached its peak following George Floyd's death at the hands of a police officer in 2020.

These are "interesting times in the US," said SXSW President Hugh Forrest, speaking to a keynote audience. The success of the festival "shows what we believe in: cooperation over competition, building bridges versus burning them down."