Spritzler sued by the National Reporters Guild (I just made that up) for discriminating against writers simply on the basis that they lack literacy.
Business Backs Away From DEI
Companies end their bias policies under new legal scrutiny.
By The Editorial Board, WSJ
Aug. 29, 2024 5:16 pm ET
Progressives pioneered the strategy of using activist campaigns to change corporate policies, and now they’re learning the other side can do the same. More companies are backing away from diversity, equity and inclusion policies amid new public scrutiny, and the distiller Brown-Forman illustrates the trend.
In an internal company email shared on social media by conservative Robby Starbuck, the Brown-Forman Corp. Executive Leadership Team wrote that since it launched its diversity initiatives in 2019 “the world has evolved, our business has changed, and the legal and external landscape has shifted dramatically, particularly within the United States.”
Brown-Forman’s email said it will end “quantitative workforce and supplier diversity ambitions,” also known as race-based hiring, contracting and promotion. It will also end “participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index Survey.” This politicized index scores companies’ LGBTQ+ “workplace inclusion,” including categories on “transgender workplace best practices” and “corporate social responsibility.”
The company added that it will be “reviewing training programs for consistency with an evolved strategy” and ensure that “executive incentives and employee goals are tied to business performance,” a suggestion that perhaps they weren’t closely linked before.
The Brown-Forman shift follows similar rollbacks at Harley-Davidson Inc., Deere & Co. and Tractor Supply Co., which withdrew their major DEI initiatives this summer. Lowe’s Cos. announced similar changes on Monday and Ford Motor Co, did so on Wednesday.
Brown-Forman’s decision comes amid a campaign by Mr. Starbuck to call out corporations that have adopted progressive woke policies. He said on the X website that he was set to expose the Brown-Forman workplace policies and the company “preemptively announced that they’ll be making these changes.”
Brown-Forman didn’t reply to our request for comment. Lowe’s referred us to a statement that the company ensures that “our hiring is not and has never been based on numbers or targets” and “everyone is included and considered fairly based on merit and results.”
More companies could find themselves under similar scrutiny. Many CEOs have bent in recent years to progressive pressure to adopt race-based hiring practices. Covington & Burling counsel and former Attorney General Eric Holder has a major sideline helping companies conduct civil-rights assessments to implement DEI policies.
This pressure is now cutting both ways. Mr. Starbuck says he had “well over 15GB of files photos and videos” on Brown-Forman and a dossier on Lowe’s as well. The threat of similar exposure is “forcing multibillion dollar organizations to change their policies” for fear of being the next company exposed, he says.
Companies are wise to re-examine their policies even without the political pressure. CEOs and corporate boards are obliged by law to have neutral hiring practices that don’t discriminate by race, gender and so on. Progressives have leaned on business to abandon this neutrality in favor of discriminating by race.
In that sense Mr. Starbuck and his whistleblowers are doing companies a favor by warning them of the potential lawsuits to come. They are also steering companies back to their fundamental mission to focus on increasing shareholder value, rather than politics.
The Supreme Court’s 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling concerned unconstitutional discrimination in college admissions. But Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a concurrence that discrimination in all federally funded programs is also banned under Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The interpretation almost certainly applies to Title VII, and companies run the risk of becoming test cases if they don’t abandon the DEI framework.
Republican state Attorneys General began warning companies about this last year. If businesses weren’t listening then, they are now.
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