The Real Reasons Why So Many Brands Have Broken Their DEI Promises

On June 6, 2024, a 35-year-old Tennessean named Robby Starbuck got wind of something that ticked him off. Tractor Supply, the retail chain where Starbuck bought feed for the cattle on his 12-acre ranch, had adopted multiple policies and initiatives aimed at fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI.) And so Starbuck, a former music video director who’s amassed a considerable social-media following as a conservative activist, logged onto his X account. “It’s time to expose Tractor Supply,” Starbuck wrote, citing “LGBTQIA+ events at work” and “DEI hiring practices” among his grievances. “We don’t want our hard-earned money spent on these woke priorities,” he wrote. A few weeks later—coincidentally or not—Tractor Supply issued a statement announcing that it planned to “eliminate DEI roles and retire our current DEI goals.” With that notch on his holster (“I realized, hey, this is repeatable,” he told USAToday), Starbuck set his sights on other companies including Ford, Molson Coors, and Harley Davidson. These brands join John Deere, Lowe’s, and Target on a roster of major companies that have ended or severely curtailed their DEI policies. None would agree to speak with ADWEEK. Starbuck—who also did not respond to a request for comment—has been so widely credited with spooking corporations about diversity that it’s easy to overlook a larger point: it’s taken more than one man and his X postings to get to where we are now. A matrix of political, social, and economic factors has been necessary for brands to change their tune on diversity. A threat from 13 states When major news outlets began reporting on companies walking back their DEI promises earlier this summer, it was easy to assume that the about-face had happened overnight. But the corporate retreat actually started at least a year ago, well before commentators like Starbuck—and business titans like hedge-fund mogul Bill Ackman, who’s called DEI policies "racist"—grabbed headlines. On June 29, 2023, the Supreme Court halted four decades of precedent when it struck down affirmative action in college admissions. While that decision didn’t address corporate hiring, it clearly led to what came next. Fourteen days after the high court’s ruling, the CEOs of a hundred of America’s leading brands (heavyweights including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Airbnb) received a letter bearing the signatures of 13 state attorneys general. Its purpose was to put corporate America on notice about its DEI programs. “Treating people differently because of the color of their skin, even for benign purposes, is unlawful and wrong,” wrote the officials, who took especial issue with what they termed “racial preferences and quotas.” The letter concluded: “Companies that engage in racial discrimination should and will face serious legal consequences.” “That was a threat,” said Eric Bloem, vp of programs and corporate advocacy for the Human Rights Campaign. “It also demonstrates the political nature of the attack against diversity equity inclusion.” Bloem is in a position to know. A leading LGBTQ+ advocacy group, HRC publishes an annual Corporate Equality Index that scores companies on how queer-friendly they are. Brands that have walked back their DEI pledges—including Harley-Davison, Ford, and Lowe’s—have made refusing to cooperate with the HRC a key component of that pullout. Remembering the “Brew-Haha” David Evans, chief insights officer for consumer intelligence firm Collage Group, points to another factor he believes has prompted brands' cool on DEI. It’s an incident known as the “Brew-haha.” In April of last year, when Bud Light partnered with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a “Days of Girlhood” promotion, the response was volcanic. Sales fell, boycott threats flew and the A-B InBev brand caught hell from all directions. “Not only did you see largely white, largely conservative individuals backlashing,” Evans said, “but LGBT+ communities and their allies backlashed as well.” (The latter fury erupted after Bud Light seemingly turned its back on its own influencer. “I was waiting for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did,” Mulvaney later said in a TikTok video.) According to Evans, many corporations were permanently spooked by the Mulvaney fiasco—and little wonder, since it cost the company $395 million in lost revenue. And if the incident demonstrated the hazards of wading into the culture wars of 2023, then the election season of 2024 awakened those memories—and reframed corporate DEI policies as a risk some would rather not take. “A lot of beliefs, values, and policies are being discussed and debated right now, bringing that conversation into people’s homes, schools, and workplaces,” added Forrester principal analyst Audrey Chee-Read. “DEI is just another hot-button issue that brands would prefer to avoid.” DEI certainly didn’t feel like a hot-button issue four years ago. After a Minneapolis policeman murdered George Floyd in May of 2020 and Black Lives Matter marches filled the streets of major cities, corporate America scrambled to create and fund DEI programs to the tune of $7.5 billion, according to McKinsey data. But, as Wharton marketing professor Cait Lamberton observed, that sense of urgency has faded, and even companies that made significant progress on the diversity front may feel like it’s time to shift gears. For example, Molson Coors’ Imprint Report from last year touted that the company had achieved just over a 29% “representation of people of color” in its U.S. workforce and had given “diverse suppliers” more than $640 million in business. Companies that set up ambitious DEI goals such as these, Lambert suggested, “were doing it because [corporate America] had all fallen short for so long. It was a rebirth story. But last year, companies were publishing reports saying that they had reached their goals. A rebirth narrative doesn’t continue forever.” The exception rather than the rule It’s worth pointing out that while at least seven major brands may have distanced themselves from DEI, most have not. Some 1,400 companies shared information with the HRC for its 2025 Corporate Equality Index—the highest it’s ever had. A Morning Consult survey conducted earlier this year found that 82% of C-suite executives still regard diversity initiatives “as essential to their business strategy.” Those few companies backing away from DEI, Bloem said, “are making short-sighted business decisions.” Those decisions by a few may ultimately stain consumers’ perceptions of brands in general. Jo-Ellen Pozner, who teaches management at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business, said that companies so quick to abandon DEI are playing into the hands of cynics. “The fact that they are now publicly saying, ‘We don't need [DEI],’ is tantamount to an admission that [companies] didn't really mean it, that they don’t have values,” Pozner said. “It makes us feel like nobody’s serious about anything.” Of course, some of the brands backtracking on DEI have taken semantic pains to indicate that they are still serious. Tractor Supply may be eliminating its DEI goals but said it will do so “while still ensuring a respectful environment.” At Ford, hiring quotas are out, but the company “remains deeply committed to fostering a safe and inclusive workplace,” according to the letter that CEO Jim Farley sent to employees. But these newer, vaguer promises do not move diversity advocates like Marc H. Morial, president, and CEO of civil-rights organization the National Urban League, who believes that brands retreating from DEI have caved in to pressures they should have resisted. “The extremist backlash to corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion policies is a blatant effort to keep the gates of opportunity locked,” he said. “Diverse organizations are profitable, thriving, resilient organizations, and we will not allow a small but powerful and influential group of extremists to drag our country down to protect their own narrow interests.”

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The Real Reasons Why So Many Brands Have Broken Their DEI Promises

Conservative activists are only part of the picture

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Robert Klara

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