Walmart just became the biggest company to roll back its DEI initiatives
Walmart (WMT) is joining a slew of other major corporations — including automakers Toyota Motor (TM) and Ford Motor Co. (F) — in rolling back its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives after facing potential conservative boycotts.
Walmart’s sweeping changes include pulling out of The Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index, ending a practice of giving priority treatment to suppliers based on race or gender, and choosing not to renew a five-year commitment to a racial equity center established after the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, The Associated Press reported late Monday.
“We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect,” Walmart said in a statement, “but every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers and to be a Walmart for everyone.”
The move comes as conservative groups — encouraged by the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision ending affirmative action in college admissions — have moved to pressure companies to limit or abandon their DEI efforts.
Stephen Miller, a top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, has used his America First Legal group to sue companies using DEI initiatives, as well as programs focused on aiding non-white Americans. That group alone has gone after companies including CrowdStrike and IBM (IBM) subsidiary Red Hat, as well as Hello Alice and New York University. Pfizer (PFE) and Morgan Stanley (MS), among others, have been sued by similar groups.
On Monday, conservative influencer Robby Starbuck took credit for Walmart’s decision, writing on social media that he worked with the company after planning on “doing a story on wokeness there.” Starbuck, a former music video director who unsuccessfully ran for Congress as a Republican, has developed a sizeable online following by campaigning against corporate DEI policies.
He has pressured companies including Ford, Lowe’s, Harley-Davidson (HOG), Deere & Co. (DE), Molson Coors (TAP), and Toyota to scale back DEI programs to avoid conservative boycotts. He also claims responsibility for Boeing (BA) and Stanley Black & Decker’s (SWK) rollbacks.
“I’m happy to have secured these changes before Christmas when shoppers have very few large retail brands they can spend money with who aren’t pushing woke policies,” Starbuck wrote on X.
He also suggested that Walmart’s changes are going to slam rival retailers Amazon (AMZN) and Target (TGT), the latter of which has been repeatedly attacked by conservative groups. Starbuck warned that Amazon and Target should be “very nervous.”
Target was criticized by conservatives last year for selling “woke” merchandise during Pride Month, which appeared to have an effect on sales. Activists organized boycotts, while some influencers threatened Target employees and caused disruptions at stores. Target decided this year not to sell its Pride collection in stores.
“The situation these companies are facing is a very different new world where I have a direct line to a sizable portion of their customers,” Starbuck told the Financial Times in September. “These customers are engaged, and they now understand something very important: their wallets are a weapon.”
