Conservatives seeking to roll back corporate America’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion have found a champion in Robby Starbuck, a filmmaker, influencer and anti-woke activist.
Although investors, Republican state attorneys general and litigants have long pushed companies In abandoning policies designed to diversify their workforces and support gay rights, few have been as successful as Starbucks.
FordLowe’s Harley-Davidson and tractor maker Deere & Co are among companies that announced they would end some diversity work after Starbucks boycotted them. This week they were joined by Molson Coors, the brewer.
“The situation these companies are facing is very different, where I have a direct line to a significant portion of their customers,” Starbuck told the Financial Times in an interview. “These customers are engaged and they now understand something very important: their wallets are a weapon.”
Every company Starbuck contacted about its DEI policies told it they would make changes, including the retailer Supply of tractors and Jack Daniel’s whiskey maker Brown-Forman said.
Although the 35-year-old activist says he is lobbying American corporations to be politically neutral, he has championed right-wing causes in his home area of Franklin, Tennessee, just outside Nashville.
She campaigned against mask mandates and Covid-19 vaccines during the height of the pandemic and made a film opposing gender-affirming health care called The war against children with his wife, Landon. Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. pushed the project, which faced controversy for its allegedly deceptive production tactics.
As a corporate activist, Starbuck gathers information about companies’ diversity initiatives from its 600,000 followers on X and researches them with the help of two employees. They study a brand’s customers, executives and directors to identify one that may be “ready” for change, Starbuck said. It uses revenue from its social media pages to fund the operation.
“The reason [corporations] He adopted many far-left and progressive policies because a very small and vocal group [group] “There were a lot of people putting pressure on these companies… telling them they had to do this, that or the other, or that they were racist or that they were homophobic,” Starbuck said. “We were perfectly happy to be a silent majority. Well, that’s not right.”
He started out focusing on companies he said relied heavily on conservative consumers, but has now turned his attention to what he calls “50-50 ball companies” — those whose customer base could be either conservative or liberal, a reference to the moment at the start of a basketball game when two players jump to catch the ball.
The first company in that category that Starbuck targeted was Lowe’s. He shared videos explaining the home goods retailer’s DEI initiatives and asked his mostly conservative followers to boycott them. The company’s rival, Home Depot, is next on his list.
Starbuck has a simple explanation for how he became more influential than many more experienced and resourceful shareholder activists: “The truth is that they don’t know how to communicate in the same way that we do.”
“I think I can put together a puzzle that makes sense to people and that they can relate to in their lives,” Starbuck said. “When I talk about someone who is afraid to say something about how they feel at work because they are afraid of losing their job, that connects with someone much more than a shareholder proposal.”
In July, farm retailer Tractor Supply said it had heard from its customers that “we had let them down” and pledged to “retire” its current diversity goals and climate commitments. Weeks later, John Deere said it would ensure “socially motivated messaging” was absent from its internal policies.
Harley-Davidson has since cited “negativity on social media” in announcing it would end its DEI function and affiliations with LGBT+ advocacy groups, while Brown-Forman has said it would no longer tie executive compensation to progress on diversity.
Lowe’s announced it would stop participating in surveys by LGBT+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign and restructure its employee resource groups, though it said the changes had been discussed internally before it received messages from Starbuck.
Ford also withdrew from HRC’s workplace rankings, saying it had “reviewed our policies and practices to ensure they support our values, drive business results and take into account the current landscape.”
On Tuesday, Molson Coors said it would also stop participating in HRC rankings and abandon its supplier diversity goals.
“The driving force behind this change was the realization that when all of our employees know they are welcome, they are more engaged, motivated and committed to the collective success of our company,” the brewer said in an email to employees.
The Starbucks boycotts come amid a broader re-evaluation of the role corporations should play in America’s culture wars.
Corporate DEI initiatives, such as anti-bias training, recruiting outreach strategies, and sponsorships from civil rights groups, multiplied after a Minneapolis police officer killed George Floyd in 2020.
According to a July poll by Morning Consult, most American adults still support corporate DEI programs, with 57 percent approving efforts to recruit members of minority groups. But pollsters found that men and Republicans are the most likely to disapprove, and such initiatives face growing political pressure.
“DEI is on the rocks,” said Emma Obanye, a DEI advocate and executive director of OneTech, a support program for minority entrepreneurs. “So it’s really about starting over from scratch and reinforcing the things that make sense and getting rid of the things that don’t.”
Diversity advocates say the types of initiatives Starbuck has managed to roll back, such as relationships with LGBT+ advocacy groups and employee resource groups, are not as effective at boosting workplace equity as measures like pay and promotion audits.
“Starbucks is testing the robustness of these policies and we are seeing which companies have been holding back on these real issues,” Obanye said. “That says a lot more about the companies than it does about Starbucks.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said after Ford decided to end its partnership with the organization that she “could not be more disappointed” and called Starbuck an “Internet troll.”
Starbuck, however, said it would continue to push for American companies and school systems to withdraw from “social justice struggles.”
“If we could make both places a neutral ground where people could exist without having to accept an ideology being imposed on them that they don’t agree with… I think everyone would benefit from that,” he said, “and maybe people would treat each other a little better.”