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Ford, Coors Light and Other Brands Retreat From a Gay-Rights Index

Corporate DEI indexes remind me of the McCarthyism back in the 1950s.


Do you think the famous Dylan Mulvaney commercial happened by accident. NO! Anheiser Busch was attempting to raise its HRC scare by modiying it's beer advertising. Guess that didn't work out as planned.




Ford, Coors Light and Other Brands Retreat From a Gay-Rights Index

Human Rights Campaign used a ranking of companies to advance same-sex benefits; now an activist is using the index to pressure CEOs

By Theo Francis and Lauren Weber

Updated Sept. 5, 2024 12:00 am ET


When Ford scaled back its diversity initiatives it called out one organization by name: the Human Rights Campaign.


The automaker last week told employees it would stop providing workplace data to the gay-rights lobbying group, which spent decades persuading big companies to embrace policies hospitable to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees and customers.


Other companies dialing down diversity initiatives this summer also said they would distance themselves from HRC: Harley-Davidson , Lowe’s, rural retailer Tractor Supply and distiller Brown-Forman , which makes Jack Daniel’s. On Tuesday, Molson Coors also said it would stop working with the group.


The companies didn’t elaborate on why they highlighted HRC in their announcements. Nearly all of them had ranked well on an index that HRC uses to score companies by their LGBTQ-friendly policies. Some of the companies said they would stop sharing data with HRC after they had been targeted by social-media activist Robby Starbuck.


Starbuck said he has been open about his disdain for HRC’s index and policies it supports, because he said they could leave conservative customers financing activities with which they disagree, such as transition care for transgender children of employees. He said he doesn’t raise the group directly with executives. “I don’t think I need to,” he said in an interview. “I think the companies put two and two together.”


The focus on the HRC—and in particular its equality ranking—marks a shift in efforts to unwind diversity initiatives in the private sector. This year, companies have mostly faced pressure over workplace and funding programs based on race and ethnicity, including pay incentives, grants and supplier contracting. But a few companies—including the brewer of Bud Light—have suffered from backlash from consumers upset over LGBTQ support.


Ford CEO Jim Farley recently told staff the automaker was a ‘pioneer in providing opportunities to people around the world of all races, genders, and backgrounds.’ Photo: Reuters


In a memo to staff, Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company was a “pioneer in providing opportunities to people around the world of all races, genders, and backgrounds.” He wrote that Ford had reviewed its policies, taking into account an evolving “external and legal environment related to political and social issues.”


A Ford spokesman said Farley named HRC because it is the group employees and others ask about most often. The company has decided to stop aiding all surveys that rank workplaces, including for veterans, people with disabilities and other groups, because of the time and effort required, the spokesman added.


HRC’s president, Kelley Robinson, said in a statement that Ford was “signaling that inclusion and other core values are no longer a priority in the workplace.” HRC said Ford’s new stance “will hurt the company’s long-term business success, from employee retention to consumer decisions about how they will spend their dollars.”


Corporate equality index

Ford, Molson Coors and other companies plan to stop providing data for the Corporate Equality Index produced by HRC’s foundation. Last year, the index scored more than 1,300 companies to help potential customers, employees and others gauge how friendly the company’s policies are to LGBTQ people.


Those measures include workforce policies prohibiting discrimination for sexual orientation and gender identity, and providing health-insurance and other benefits that treat same-sex and opposite-sex partners the same and cover transition-related care for transgender participants.


HRC awarded 545 companies a perfect score in the index, including both Ford and Molson Coors, as well as Lowe’s and Brown-Forman. Tractor Supply scored 95 out of 100 in the last report, as did tractor maker Deere DE -2.11%decrease; red down pointing triangle. In mid-July, Deere said it would no longer support “social or cultural awareness parades, festivals or events” but didn’t name HRC or any other groups.


HRC said it would still evaluate and score companies that don’t provide information for the index. The group had already begun to penalize companies for recent anti-LGBTQ positions.


“These statements obviously undermine our broader work toward LGBTQ+ equality,” said Eric Bloem, HRC’s vice president of programs and corporate advocacy. “We have a responsibility to make sure our community has the information that they need, so they understand where they can go to work and feel included, and where they can be using their dollars.”



Home improvement retailer Lowe’s was among companies that had a perfect score on the Corporate Equality Index for its LGBTQ-friendly policies. Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo/Shutterstock

HRC fights back


HRC has begun calling attention to companies distancing themselves from its goals. Visitors to its website in recent days encountered an invitation to send a protest message to companies. “This isn’t just policy. It’s personal,” the group said, alongside logos for Ford and others.


Ford, Lowe’s and Molson Coors hadn’t been publicly criticized by Starbuck when they announced their changes. Molson Coors distanced itself from HRC a week after Starbuck reached out directly to company executives, threatening “to expose their woke policies,” Starbuck said in a post on X. Starbuck sent a similar message to Lowe’s.


Molson Coors told employees in a memo Tuesday that halting participation in HRC’s index and other rankings won’t affect its employee benefits or reduce its commitment to a culture “where every one of our employees knows they are welcome at our bar.”


A Brown-Forman spokeswoman said the distiller’s business and the legal landscape had changed since it launched its diversity and inclusion strategy in 2019. A Lowe’s spokesman said the retailer strives to create a welcoming environment and heard from Starbuck after it had announced changes long in the works.


Criticizing companies by name is unusual for HRC, said Bob Witeck, a communications consultant on LGBTQ issues who helped HRC with early versions of its corporate index. “They work behind the scenes most of the time,” he said.


From Congress to companies

HRC, which is based in Washington, D.C., traces its beginnings to 1980 when it focused on advancing congressional candidates who supported equal rights for gay Americans. Concluding that legal protections for gay and lesbian Americans could take years to secure, HRC in the 1990s and early 2000s lobbied companies to extend employee benefits to same-sex partners, among other priorities.


“Organizations like HRC figured out, here’s a way we can essentially embed discrimination protections within companies all across America without getting a law passed,” said David Glasgow, who runs a diversity research center at New York University’s law school. “That’s the real power of these indexes: They can create large-scale social and workplace changes without having to go through a dysfunctional congressional process.”



Harley-Davidson was among companies targeted by conservatives in social-media campaigns.


In the process, HRC drew on support within the workforces and customer bases of big companies and laid out arguments that were as much about economics as ethics: Gay and lesbian Americans represented significant spending power and talented job candidates—and were willing to vote with their feet.


Among the most commonly cited figures: the LGBTQ community’s $1.4 trillion in annual spending power—a figure also cited by Merrill Lynch—and the roughly one in five young Americans who identify as LGBTQ+, a figure reflected in a Gallup poll this spring.


“We are just five years from this groundswell,” said Deena Fidas, chief of programs and partnerships for Out & Equal, an LGBTQ-rights group focused on the workplace. “The handful of brands that are shaving off some of their LGBTQ engagement effort this summer will reverse course in the near future.”


Ford shifts gears

Over time, HRC and its allies made inroads as laws and regulations began to enforce similar principles. HRC says 93% of Fortune 500 companies prohibit employment discrimination by sexual orientation and gender identity, and about three-quarters have transgender-inclusive benefits.


In 2005, Ford stopped advertising in gay publications after boycott threats from a conservative group. By 2012, the automaker was joining GM and Chrysler, along with the United Auto Workers, to co-sponsor Motor City Pride, Detroit’s annual LGBTQ pride celebration.


HRC’s most recent index notes that Ford provided an LGBTQ+ benefits guide to employees, offered equivalent medical and family-formation benefits to same- and opposite-sex couples, and had policies prohibiting discrimination in employment and supplier contracting.


“I was always proud of the HRC rating earned by Ford,” said Amanda Redwine, a former Ford employee active in its group for LGBTQ employees. “Those changes to company policy were hard won by real employees who fought their way all the way up to get in front of decision makers and to enlist them in the fight.”

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