American companies are feeling the pressure to roll back or eliminate their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies, experts say. They’re facing pressure from right-wing personalities and conservative law firms deeming them “woke” for efforts they believe provide advantages to people from underrepresented backgrounds.
Louisville-based Brown-Forman is one of the latest companies to end its DEI efforts.
In a recent internal email sent to employees leaked by right-wing personality Robby Starbuck on the social media platform X, Brown-Forman said it will take steps as part of a new strategic framework to ensure “executive incentives and employee goals are tied to business performance, removing our quantitative workforce and supplier diversity ambitions, and reviewing training programs for consistency, with an evolved strategy.”
The company also announced that it was pulling out of the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Commission’s Corporate Equality Index. Brown-Forman got a top score on the 2023-2024 index for its inclusive benefits and culture, internal training and corporate social responsibility toward its LGBTQ+ employees.
LPM News independently verified the authenticity of the email.
The company put its DEI strategy in place in 2019.“Since then, the world has evolved, our business has changed, and the legal and external landscape has shifted dramatically, particularly within the United States. With these new dynamics at play, we must adjust our work to ensure it continues to drive business results while appropriately recognizing the current environment in which we find ourselves,” the email said.
The company’s DEI page no longer exists.
Brown-Forman said in the email that it would still try to “foster an inclusive work environment where everyone is welcomed, respected and able to bring their best self to work.”
Representatives for Brown-Forman declined to answer questions over email.
According to the company’s 2022 Environmental, Social and Governance or ESG — report, 14% of its suppliers are women and minority-led.
In an archived version of the website’s DEI page, the company’s 2030 DEI ambitions included increasing global female leadership and representation of underrepresented racial groups at all management levels.
In recent years, particularly amid the racial justice protests of 2020, many companies created DEI policies. Lately, some conservatives are pushing back.
Opponents of DEI policies are targeting them with boycotts and lawsuits. Lawsuits against companies related to diversity training and hiring practices have piled up after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in educational settings last year.
While it didn’t directly cause the backlash against companies’ DEI policies and initiatives, the ruling may have produced a ripple effect.
Professor Robert Thomas, associate dean for Access, Empowerment, & Societal Impact at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, said some companies that are rolling back their DEI and ESG principles weren’t strong on those initiatives in the first place.
“They were latecomers to the party, and so they did not really have a strong commitment. Basically, the commitment wasn't in their DNA. And so they jumped on board quickly, and they're jumping off just as quickly,” he said.
Two conservative law firms have spearheaded anti-DEI litigation against companies recently. Stephen Miller, once an adviser to former President Donald Trump, with his firm America First Legaland Edward Blum of the American Alliance for Equal Rights launched challenges to corporate DEI programs.
Thomas said companies should reach out to a variety of marginalized groups, beyond race and gender, as part of their DEI efforts. And he said companies and universities need to do a better job reaching out to all kinds of marginalized groups.
“The right has successfully painted DEI as being an entitlement program,” he said, adding that opponents view these initiatives as benefiting Black and other people of color, while excluding white people.
Thomas said hiring diverse candidates is just good business sense, and companies need to offer training on team-building and management that invariably touch on issues of diversity and inclusion.
“Knowing that many young people prefer to work in more diverse environments, so you're able to recruit much better talent by having diverse workforces, there’s clearly a business purpose,” he said.
Daniel Oppong, CEO of DEI consulting firm The Courage Collective, has worked with Fortune 500 companies like Capital One and Nissan.
In light of the 2020 racial justice protests and larger movement reacting to the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, many companies intensified their DEI efforts, some of which were not very meaningful or transformational, he said.
He said companies are making decisions on DEI policies based on what makes sense in the current cultural context and historical data of their customer base.
"Regardless of whether a company is for or against [DEI], I think one thing we have to acknowledge is that the demographics in the world are shifting, and as the demographics in the world shift, your ability to be relevant and inclusive of different identities is going to matter as far as your employees as well as the customers that you serve," he said.
Oppong said the slate of companies facing litigation or rolling back DEI policies in 2024 was entirely predictable. Companies buckling to backlash need to rethink their approach to DEI, he said.
“If the motivation really was to truly create lasting change and to align with your values, then it would matter less whether or not there's public pushback,” he said.
Oppong also said he has mixed feelings when it comes to companies tying compensation and incentives to DEI. He views that idea as an attempt to show the importance of diversity and inclusion by tying it to financial outcomes, which companies inherently value.
“The problem, to me, it's a very external motivator, and it's not sustainable,” he said.
Oppong said a good DEI initiative should consider how a company can impact employees and others beyond the workplace.
"How are you leveraging and impacting your sphere of influence, and leveraging your brand, or you know, your impact in a positive way?” he said.
He recommended companies consider that influence along with how they treat and recognize employees at work.
