Walmart, once eager to promote diversity, pulls back amid conservative pressure
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Walmart is pulling back on some initiatives for diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW YORK - In June 2020, as protesters spilled into the streets after the murder of George Floyd, Walmart’s chief executive Doug McMillon promised action.
In a blog post, he said that “slavery, lynching, the concept of separate but equal... have morphed into a set of systems today that are all too often, unjust” and promised to address systemic racism by establishing a Centre for Racial Equity that would give out US$100 million (S$135 million) in grants over five years. He also pledged to make changes within the company and “actively shape our culture to be more inclusive”.
Walmart is sending a different message 4½ years later, pulling back on some of those initiatives for diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI.
The company will stop sharing data with the Human Rights Campaign, a non-profit that tracks corporate LGBTQ+ policies.
Third-party merchants will no longer be able to sell some LGBTQ-themed items, such as chest binders, on Walmart.com that could be marketed to children. It will no longer use the terms DEI and Latinx in official communications.
And Walmart will not renew the Centre for Racial Equity when the agreement expires in 2025.
Mr Robby Starbuck, an anti-DEI activist and a social media influencer, declared the changes a victory on Nov 25.
In a post on social media, Mr Starbuck said that he had told executives at the company that he was working on a story about “wokeness” at Walmart, and the two sides had “productive conversations” to make changes “before Christmas when shoppers have very few large retail brands they can spend money with who aren’t pushing woke policies”.
A spokesperson for Walmart confirmed the changes.
Many companies are concerned about the threat of litigation targeting DEI programmes after a 2023 Supreme Court decision striking down race-conscious college admissions.
At New York University School of Law, the Meltzer Centre has been hosting a quarterly webinar for employers, helping them to understand which DEI programmes are legally safe.
Diversity experts note that while companies worry about the social and cultural backlash they are facing, they also have to juggle concerns about their workforce. For black workers, said sociologist Adia Harvey Wingfield, pulling back from diversity policies “reinforces the message that they don’t belong”. NYTIMES
