Lowe’s – Photo: Mike Mozart via Flickr, Ford – Photo: wikicommons
Two more major corporations have abandoned their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and distanced themselves from the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights organization to avoid criticism from right-wing activists and conservative voters.
The disturbing trend provides more evidence to support claims that corporate America — once heralded for its embrace of the LGBTQ community — has begun scrapping policies that might anger conservative consumers and prompt a boycott of their products.
Conservatives argue that DEI policies amount to discrimination, favoring racial and gender minorities over other job applicants or catering to their wishes over those of other employees.
Social conservatives also dislike what they see as efforts to pander to LGBTQ employees.
This includes companies that either offer benefits that treat same-sex relationships as the equivalent of straight relationships, acknowledge transgender identity as valid, support LGBTQ events like Pride festivals or parades, and speak out against anti-LGBTQ bills making their way through state and national legislatures.
According to CNN, Ford Motor Company’s CEO Jim Farley announced to employees last Wednesday that the automotive giant had changed several of its policies.
The company’s employee resource groups would stop focusing on identity and halt participation in external surveys, including the Human Rights Campaign’s “Corporate Equality Index,” which rates companies on their LGBTQ workplace nondiscrimination policies and employee benefits.
“We are mindful that our employees and customers hold a wide range of beliefs, and the external and legal environment related to political and social issues continues to evolve,” Farley wrote in the email.
He noted that the company does not “utilize hiring quotas or tie compensation to the achievement of specific diversity goals,” does not use “quotas [to] develop a dealer body that reflects the communities they serve,” has shifted the focus of employee resource groups to focus on networking, mentorship, professional development, and community service, and does not limit membership in any employee resource group to anyone based on individual characteristics.
Farley insisted that Ford remains committed to creating an “inclusive workspace and building a team that leverages diverse perspectives, backgrounds, and thinking styles.”
Right-wing activist Robby Starbuck posted a copy of Farley’s email on X, claiming that the company — like others — had changed its policies after he had informed them he was looking into their policies.
Starbuck has been the driving force behind boycotts of companies that embrace DEI or pro-LGBTQ policies, including Tractor Supply Co., John Deere, and motorcycle giant Harley-Davidson.
Due to threats of boycotts, the companies all scuttled their DEI policies and severed ties with the Human Rights Campaign.
Brown-Forman, the parent company of popular whiskey brand Jack Daniel’s followed suit without even being threatened with boycotts, although Starbuck claims he had been investigating the company and believes executives had been tipped off to his investigative tactics.
Within the same week as Ford’s reversal on DEI, home improvement retail chain Lowe’s scuttled its own policies, vowing, in an internal memo, not to participate in HRC’s Corporate Equality Index and to end participation in community events such as parades, festivals, and fairs, which left-leaning critics say is a veiled reference to Pride-themed events.
Lowe’s also said it would combine employee resource groups for diverse employees under a single umbrella, and would largely focus the group’s efforts on safe and affordable housing, disaster relief, and skilled trades education.
Starbuck celebrated that development, telling USA Today, “Our movement against wokeness is a force that companies simply cannot ignore. I’m a megaphone for normal people who are sick of having divisive social issues shoved down their throat at work.”
CNN reports that Starbuck’s activism alone does not fully explain the companies’ reversal of pro-diversity or pro-LGBTQ policies, even asserting that some companies’ purported commitments to diversity and inclusion were flimsy and adopted mostly as a form of virtue-signaling.
HRC has blasted Ford, Lowe’s, and other companies for reversing or erasing their commitment to diversity and inclusion, accusing them of being shortsighted for financial gain and of “cowering” to right-wing extremists.
“By failing to support women leaders, employees of color, and LGBTQ+ employees, Ford Motor Company is abandoning its financial duty to recruit and keep top talent from across the full talent pool,” HRC President Kelley Robinson said after Ford’s announcement.
She also appeared to imply that LGBTQ consumers may wish to boycott Ford products or patronize Ford’s competitors.
“In making their purchasing decisions, consumers should take note that Ford Motor Company has abandoned its commitment to our communities,” she said, adding that Ford and other companies would suffer “long-term consequences” for “hastily abandoning efforts that ensure fair, safe, and inclusive work environments. With nearly 30% of Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ+ and the community wielding $1.4 trillion in spending power, retreating from these principles undermines both consumer trust and employee success.”
