Coors Beer – Photo: Josh Hild via Unsplash
Molson Coors, which manufactures Coors and Coors Light, is the latest major corporation to roll back Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies and distance itself from the LGBTQ community.
The beer giant is bowing to the will of conservative activist Robby Starbuck, who has been mounting a campaign to expose corporations with DEI policies or companies that financially support LGBTQ-themed events like Pride, intending to boycott such businesses until they drop their so-called “woke” policies.
Starbuck boasted on the social media platform X that Coors sent him a letter that its leadership team had circulated to employees explaining the changes the company has made after he threatened to expose their policies last week.
In the letter, Coors’ company executives said its human resources team began making plans in March to broaden the view of its DEI policies to ensure all employees “know they are welcome.”
The beer giant said it would halt all DEI trainings, scuttle requiring suppliers to meet diversity goals, and tie executive compensation solely to business performance rather than “aspirational representation goals.”
The company also said it would stop participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s “Corporate Equality Index,” an annual survey that ranks companies based on the existence of their LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination policies, as well as employee benefit policies that recognize same-sex relationships, LGBTQ-headed families, or transgender identities as valid.
Starbuck has primarily been targeting companies whose consumer base is perceived as socially conservative, including beer and spirit manufacturers, retail chains, automotive brands like Ford Motor Company, motorcycle giant Harley-Davidson, or agricultural-related companies like Tractor Supply Co. or John Deere.
But his campaign appears to be aimed at eventually intimidating or forcing all major corporations — even those with liberal customer bases — into dropping DEI policies, which conservatives claim are a form of “reverse racism” that prioritize the hiring and advancement of people from various minority groups over allegedly more “qualified” heterosexual and cisgender white employees.
Starbuck has insisted companies distance themselves from the Human Rights Campaign, stop funding LGBTQ-themed events, including Pride, and stop speaking out against anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation — particularly those targeting transgender visibility — or deeming such policies as “bad for business” in terms of employee recruitment and retention.
It remains unclear whether companies that break ties with HRC or refuse to sponsor Pride events will also have to scuttle any pro-LGBTQ family leave, medical, or nondiscrimination policies to avoid boycotts.
If so, this would have the effect of forcing all out LGBTQ people to re-closet themselves in the workplace.
Starbuck celebrated Molson Coors’ announcement on X.
“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. The landscape of corporate America is quickly shifting to sanity and neutrality.”
HRC responded to the recent decisions by companies to distance themselves from the organization by pointing to a recent survey it conducted that appeared to indicate that LGBTQ consumers are more willing to patronize companies with pro-LGBTQ policies when making spending decisions.
The organization claimed that, with nearly 1 in 3 Gen Z adults identifying as LGBTQ, and the community holding about $1.4 trillion in spending power, companies’ efforts to distance themselves from pro-diversity efforts would, in the long-term, hurt their bottom lines.
“The LGBTQ+ community is an economic powerhouse, and we want to work for and support companies who support us,” Orlando Gonzales, the senior vice president of programs, research, and training at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, said in a statement. “Attacks on DEI initiatives are shortsighted and make our workplaces less safe and less inclusive for hard-working Americans of all demographics and backgrounds.”
