DEI advocates go on defense as corporations backtrack on diversity initiatives

Corporate diversity, equity and inclusion programs are folding under the threat of conservative-led boycotts and increased legal scrutiny, but DEI supporters are persisting.

The Human Rights Campaign, the Congressional Black Caucus and other groups are pressuring business leaders to stand by DEI after a tumultuous summer in which at least eight major U.S. companies halted their diversity programs.

“The people pushing corporations to engage in woke politics are on red alert,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, told The Washington Times.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, launched a countercampaign on Aug. 29 to “demand corporate America protect their workers.” A day earlier, Ford joined a half-dozen other companies to shift their focus from social initiatives to business priorities.

Companies that had abandoned DEI include Tractor Supply Co., John Deere, Lowe’s, Harley-Davidson, and distiller Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel’s.

“American businesses are turning their backs on LGBTQ+ people, people of color, women, and the disability community by ditching their long-standing commitments to best practices in workplace diversity and inclusion,” said the Human Rights Campaign petition. “We must fight back LOUDLY and PROUDLY!”

The campaign is off to a rough start. Since its inception, at least two more companies — Molson Coors and Stanley Black & Decker — have backed away from diversity initiatives.

“With all U.S. employees having participated in our previous DEI-based training programs, these programs have been completed,” Molson Coors said in its Sept. 3 email to employees. “We are now in the process of developing the next evolution of our company trainings, focused on growth for our business and a strong workplace where everyone can thrive.”

The brewer also joined a half-dozen other businesses that said they would no longer participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual Corporate Equality Index, which rates firms based on their adherence to LGBTQ priorities. Molson Coors received a perfect score of 100 last year.

Meanwhile, the Congressional Black Caucus warned that it would hold companies accountable for their DEI pledges. A report released Sept. 9 found that most Fortune 500 companies “remain committed to advancing [DEI] in the workplace despite right wing attacks.”

“We cannot allow a handful of right-wing agitators to bully corporations, and this report offers corporate America a guide to strengthening their diversity practices,” caucus Chairman Steven Horsford said in a statement.

Beyond Bud Light

Businesses have been backpedaling on woke politics since the Bud Light brand cratered by partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, but the rash of DEI defections since June is unprecedented.

Credit goes partially to conservative filmmaker Robby Starbuck, who warned companies this year that he would expose their “woke policies” unless they made changes. Consumers’ Research last year started posting “woke alerts” on leftist corporations.

Tractor Supply announced in June that it would “eliminate DEI roles and retire our current DEI goals while still ensuring a respectful environment” and “stop sponsoring nonbusiness activities like pride festivals and voting campaigns.”

Mr. Starbuck, who wrote to the company earlier this month about its woke policies, said Stanley Black & Decker CEO Don Allan sent a memo to employees last week on retooling the corporate culture.

The company’s previous efforts included a “pronouns contest,” with prizes for the employee who persuaded the most co-workers to put their pronouns in their emails.

“Our campaigns are so effective that we’re getting multi-billion-dollar organizations to change their policies without me even posting just from the fear they have of being the next company that we expose,” Mr. Starbuck posted Monday on X. “The landscape of corporate America is quickly shifting to sanity and neutrality. We are now the trend, not the anomaly.”

Big news: Last week I messaged executives at @StanleyBlkDeckr to let them know that I was planning to expose their woke policies. They also own DEWALT and Craftsman. Instead, they’re preemptively changing policy.

Here are the changes:

• Ending participation in the @HRC’s woke… pic.twitter.com/nI3PpsGbhW

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) September 16, 2024

Backing up the pressure campaigns is the legal uncertainty stemming from the Supreme Court’s June 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that university affirmative action policies violate the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause.

The ruling applied to schools that receive federal funding, not private businesses, but the decision spurred an uptick in worker reverse-discrimination complaints and a letter from 13 Republican attorneys general warning Fortune 100 companies against engaging in “illegal preferences” in the name of DEI.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, cited the Students for Fair Admissions decision in his June lawsuit accusing IBM of using “unlawful racial and gender quotas” in employee hiring. IBM has denied the use of quotas.

Although Tractor Supply and Harley-Davidson are finished with the Human Rights Campaign, it isn’t finished with the companies.

The organization announced last week that it has lowered the Corporate Equality Index scores of seven companies that have rolled back DEI engagement, even though they no longer participate in the annual survey.

The organization said its supporters have sent “nearly 140,000 letters to the seven companies who have backed away from workplace inclusion, a sign of how strongly the community is reacting to these walkbacks.”

As far as Mr. Hild is concerned, the Human Rights Campaign’s problem isn’t with the companies; it’s with the American consumers.

“Our job is really to poke a hole in the dam of the reservoir of frustration that consumers already have with these companies and their activities,” he said. “The real story is that the average consumer is already ticked off, and when they see something, they say, ‘Now I have someone to direct my ire at.’”