Ford changes DEI policies as conservative pressure campaign grows

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Ford has become the latest US company to back away from policies promoting diversity, equity and inclusion after being targeted by a conservative activist.

The carmaker said on Wednesday that it had “evolved” its employee resource groups to open them to all employees and had decided to no longer participate in a high-profile workplace ranking by gay rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck claimed Ford was the seventh company to roll back its DEI programmes under pressure from his boycott campaigns on X, where he has nearly 600,000 followers, against companies he considered to be too “woke”.

Starbuck obtained a message Ford sent to employees, in which it said it had “taken a fresh look at our policies and practices to ensure they support our values, drive business results, and take into account the current landscape”.

“The communication to our global employees speaks for itself,” Ford said. “We have nothing further to add.”

Starbuck, a former music video director, has become a prominent conservative activist, helping lead the push to ban gender-affirming care for transgender people in Tennessee. 

He is among a growing number of conservatives who have targeted the corporate diversity programmes that proliferated in corporate America after the murder of George Floyd in 2020.

Ford chair Bill Ford and its then-chief executive Jim Hackett released a letter a week after Floyd’s murder, stating that “systemic racism still exists, despite the progress that has been made”, and committing to engaging with the Ford African Ancestry Network, one of Ford’s most long-established employee resource groups.

“There are no easy answers,” the executives wrote at the time. “We are not interested in superficial actions. This is our moment to lead from the front and fully commit to creating the fair, just and inclusive culture that our employees deserve.”

But Starbuck described his supporters as “the silent majority”, and said the movement was one “for neutrality and sanity in corporate America”, which was being “poisoned by a loud but small contingent of far-left extremists”.

“Divisive political and social issues don’t belong in the workplace,” he said. “Companies need customers to walk through their doors to buy products and it appears that our movement has done an effective job of reminding them of that.”

Home improvement retailer Lowe’s said on Monday it would stop participating in surveys from Human Rights Campaign and restructure its employee resource groups, after receiving messages from Starbuck.

Harley-Davidson also ended its relationships with LGBT+ advocacy groups amid a social media campaign spearheaded by Starbuck, following similar announcements from retailer Tractor Supply and tractor maker Deere & Co last month.

Last week, Brown-Forman, the maker of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey, announced it would no longer link executive compensation to progress towards its diversity goals.