Corporate diversity, equity and inclusion programs are folding like lawn chairs under the threat of conservative-led boycotts and increased legal scrutiny, but DEI supporters aren’t taking the defections sitting down.
Groups, including the Human Rights Campaign and the Congressional Black Caucus, are pressuring business leaders to stand by DEI after a tumultuous summer that saw at least eight major U.S. companies pump the brakes on 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 HRC, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, launched a counter-campaign Aug. 29 to “demand corporate America protect their workers,” a day after Ford joined a half-dozen companies shifting their focus from social initiatives back to business priorities.
Other companies previously jumping off the DEI bandwagon 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,” says the HRC petition that was unveiled Aug. 29. “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 off their 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 beermaker also joined a half-dozen businesses in saying it would no longer participate in HRC’s annual Corporate Equality Index, which rates firms based on their adherence to LGBTQ+ priorities. Molson Coors received last year a perfect score of 100.
Meanwhile, the Congressional Black Caucus warned companies that it would hold them accountable for their DEI pledges in a corporate report released Sept. 9 that found 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 ever since the Bud Light debacle, which saw the brand crater after partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, but the rash of DEI defections since June is unprecedented.
Credit goes to conservative filmmaker Robby Starbuck, who began writing to companies earlier this year warning that he would expose their “woke policies” unless they made changes, as well as Consumers’ Research, which started posting last year “woke alerts” on leftist corporations.
Tractor Supply became the first domino to fall, announcing 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.”
Last week, Stanley Black & Decker CEO Don Allan sent a memo to employees on retooling the corporate culture, according to Mr. Starbuck, who had written to the company earlier this month about its woke policies.
The company’s previous efforts included a “pronouns contest,” with prizes given to the employee who convinced the most coworkers 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.”
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, as well as a letter from 13 Republican attorneys general warning Fortune 100 companies against engaging in “illegal preferences” in the name of DEI.
In June, Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey cited the Students for Fair Admissions decision in his lawsuit against IBM, accusing the company of using “unlawful racial and gender quotas” in employee hiring. IBM has denied the use of quotas.
Companies like Tractor Supply and Harley-Davidson may be done with the HRC, but the HRC isn’t done with them.
The organization announced last week that it has lowered the Corporate Equality Index scores of seven companies that have rolled back their DEI engagement, even though they no longer participate in the annual survey.
The organization also 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, however, the HRC’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.”
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.