This rightwing activist gets major brands to turn their backs on diversity. How is he doing it?

Robby Starbuck, the former music video director behind clips like “Super Collider” for Megadeth, has a new job: hectoring companies to drop their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and cut their ties to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the organization’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI). But Starbuck’s successes may hint that these companies were never actually invested in DEI to begin with.

This summer, he convinced Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniel’s parent company Brown-Forman, Ford Motor Co., Lowe’s, Tractor Supply Co., John Deere, and most recently large-equipment manufacturer Caterpillar Inc. Starbuck calls these corporate decisions “a massive win for sanity.”

Related:

HRC President Kelley Robinson calls rightwing activist a “Republican reject” after Ford drops CEI

Ford is the latest brand to scale back its DEI initiatives and connection to HRC after being targeted by Robby Starbuck.

“When we ask for normalcy and neutrality from corporate America, the left cries out that I’m far right. Take them at their word on this. They see normalcy and neutrality as far right. They don’t even realize that they’ve made the term not only meaningless but a badge of honor now,” Starbuck said.

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Starbuck’s tweets reveal his modus operandi. Nearly all of his posts on his DEI campaign run along the same lines as his recent post about Caterpillar. He opens by saying that he’s told company executives he “was planning to expose their woke policies,” leading them to drop DEI initiatives, including “no more woke trainings” and “no donations to divisive events.”

In Caterpillar’s case, he’s also boasted that due to his work, “All sponsorships, speakers, donations and events must be approved at the executive level to ensure that nothing is divisive or politically charged.” All this is framed as Starbuck fighting for “corporate neutrality.”

“Our campaigns are so effective that we’re getting some of the biggest corporations on earth to change their policies without me even posting a video first just from the fear they have of being the next company we expose. The landscape of corporate America is quickly shifting to sanity and neutrality. We are the trend now, not the anomaly,” Starbuck wrote.

Big news: Weeks ago I began communicating with executives at @CaterpillarInc to let them know that I was planning to expose their woke policies. Today they’re making preemptive changes.

Some highlights:

• No more woke trainings.

• No donations to divisive events.

• They… pic.twitter.com/rNh6b8Zcvw

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) September 19, 2024

Based on these successes, one might expect Starbuck to be a veteran organizer like his fellow conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who has been a far-right figure since at least 2017. Rufo is perhaps most known for the ousting of Harvard University President Claudine Gay and for making “critical race theory” a bugbear of the right. 

But surprisingly, Starbuck is relatively new to the scene. When it comes to followers on X (formerly Twitter), he’s got fewer than 630,000. Comparatively, LibsOfTikTok has 3.5 million, Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe has 2.6 million, and Rufo has 700,000. And yet, these big brands are following his lead.  

He’s been openly Republican for the last decade on social media but has only been politically active for the last four years. Though he made a failed run for Congress in Tennessee, it was his anti-LGBTQ+ activism that launched him into the right-wing spotlight in 2023. 

He accused actress Megan Fox of “child abuse” after seeing a photo of her eldest son, Noah, wearing a pink shirt. He also claimed Fox was forcing her children to wear girls’ clothes in another tweet, according to The Independent.

Fox criticized Starbuck, saying he was “exploiting my child’s gender identity to gain attention in your political campaign has put you on the wrong side of the universe,” in a now-deleted Instagram post. 

The attention Starbuck got from going after Fox may have been what ultimately laid out his path. This year, he directed the documentary The War on Children, which parrots right-wing conspiracies that the LGBTQ+ community is trying to “sexualize” children. The documentary premiered in February on X, where it was promoted by Elon Musk, who has his own issues with transphobia.

A few months after his film came out, Starbuck started his war on DEI, and in particular, the HRC and the CEI. The CEI is a massive index of nearly 1,400 companies—including three-quarters of the Fortune 500 list of largest businesses. HRC has been compiling surveys for the CEI since 2002 and rates companies based on four main metrics: nondiscrimination policies, benefits for LGBTQ+ workers, corporate culture, and social responsibility. Companies receive a score out of 100 points, and as of the last report, 545 companies have a perfect score.

While DEI initiatives attempt to create inclusive environments for people of all races, sexual orientations, and genders, a recent analysis by LGBTQ+ employee advocate Drew Keller found that only 9% of Starbuck’s DEI-related posts are about racial diversity, with the rest directed at the LGBTQ+ community, according to USA Today.

“This is not just a broadside against DEI,” Keller told the newspaper. “It’s really a targeted campaign against LGBTQ inclusion.”

In a long post to X this month, Starbuck laid out his grievances against HRC in particular. He slammed HRC for calling former President Donald Trump a “white nationalist” and claimed the organization is “work[ing] to legalize child sex changes and men in girls locker rooms.”

“This group, the HRC, fuels the wokeness in Corporate America via their CEI scoring system where companies bend over backwards to get a 100% score. Many even hire a special health care concierge for LGBTQ employees and fund transitions for children of employees in order to get their 100% CEI score,” Starbuck wrote.

“To get their 100% score, they essentially have to worship at the altar of left wing policy. Over the coming months, with the help of some great whistleblowers, we will expose every element of these disgusting practices. Now is the time to name and shame every single company who associates with this open hatred of conservative consumers.”

It’s time to expose the @HRC. This is a must see video. Did you know that most major companies work with a group that calls Trump a "White nationalist" who "hates America" and many give this group MILLIONS as they work to legalize child sex changes and men in girls locker rooms?… pic.twitter.com/2kz4fj9foM

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) September 12, 2024

It’s not surprising that Starbuck got a number of things wrong in his description of the CEI. While he describes companies as having to “bend over backwards” to get a 100 point rating, 545 out of 1,386 companies in the latest report, or nearly 40%, have that honor. Most of the CEI’s criteria—like having non-discrimination policies or offering the same benefits to employees with same-sex partners—are basic requirements which should be met by most companies regardless of DEI policies.

When it comes to the companies singled out by Starbuck, all have lost 25 points for “responsible citizenship,” which is defined as a “a large-scale official or public anti-LGBTQ+ blemish on their recent records.” In this case, HRC confirmed it’s due to the Starbuck-inspired DEI-dumping.

Ford, Lowe’s, Molson Coors, and Brown-Forman would otherwise have a perfect score, but are now at 75 points. John Deere is at 70, losing an additional 5 points for not having an LGBTQ+ benefits guide. Tractor Supply Company is also at 70, losing five points for not having a LGBTQ+ non-discrimination policy for suppliers and guidelines for inclusive giving.

Harley-Davidson has the lowest CEI score of these companies, at 20. The motorcycle company has a few pro-LGBTQ+ benefits, including a non-discrimination policy, equal health coverage for transgender employees, an LGBTQ+ resource group for employees, and a supplier non-discrimination policy. However, it loses out on all other subcriteria.

Eric Bloem, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation’s vice president of programs and corporate advocacy, told LGBTQ Nation it was “not surprising” that Starbuck would go after the CEI.

“Last year, for the first time, HRC issued our first state of emergency. We did so in response to the record-breaking legislative attacks that were being lobbed at the LGBTQ+ community, so certainly we understand that there are extremists at work here seeking to undermine the work that we’ve been able to do to achieve greater equality. And for the last 20 plus years, businesses have been at the forefront in helping us achieve that greater level of equality,” Bloem said.

The question remains: why are companies seemingly inclined to listen to Starbuck? Starbuck himself told the Financial Times that he thinks it’s because he’s a strong communicator.

“When I talk about somebody being afraid to say anything about how they feel at work because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their job, that connects with somebody a hell of a lot more than a shareholder proposal does,” he told the outlet.

Dr. M.K. Chin, an associate professor and Jerome Bess Faculty Fellow at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, told LGBTQ Nation that a company’s political decisions are usually a combination of the CEO or C-suite’s personal beliefs and values, the values of the company’s employees and outside forces.

“The biggest factor is not the CEO or management team’s personal beliefs. It’s the degree to which their personal beliefs align with employees. So that’s when the company’s voice is most strong,” he said.

But outside pressure can have stronger influence when neither the executives nor employees have strong beliefs around an issue. 

“Making the connection to the recent phenomenon around John Deere, Jack Daniel’s, and these other cases, there’s a very good chance that their driving force was not from the CEOs or employees. Their decision to engage in the DEI policies, I think there’s a good chance that it’s mostly driven by external factors. They might have considered it like checking off boxes. ‘We’ve got to do this, this is expected,’” Chin said.

“So I have to assume that there’s probably been either no consensus or weak consensus for DEI policies in the boardroom, management teams or CEOs personally at the beginning. And if that is the case, these threats might look more salient,” he added. “If you have strong beliefs in these values and these policies, you won’t be swayed by a few tweeters and influencers.”

Chin also suggested that these decisions may be hastily made, citing the Tractor Supply Company. That company said they were dropping DEI policies to “ensure our activities and giving tie directly to our business.” 

“A few days later, the Black Farmers Association announced a boycott, because they perceived that as like an attack on them,” Chin said. “So I think there could be a lot of different types of backlash the companies might not have expected.”

Bloem points out that fighting DEI initiatives is a losing battle, as the number of people who identify as LGBTQ+ is growing, with 26% of Gen Z identifying as “something other than straight.” In addition, a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll showed that most Americans agree with DEI initiatives.

“What that means is that a company’s future employees, their future customers are increasingly LGBTQ+. And so if they are going to be able to recruit the best talent, if they’re going to be able to count on their support when they purchase their products and services, they’re going to have to have to make sure that they have done the hard work in demonstrating their allyship to the LGBTQ+ community,” Bloem said.

Chin agreed, pointing out the differences between older generations, like Boomers and Gen X, and younger ones, like Millennials or Gen Z. 

“Millennials tend to prefer companies to stand up, and they expect—even require—CEOs to speak up on these socio-political issues,” he said. “Millennials are becoming more of a center of this economy. They’re becoming more important customers with greater disposable income. Boomers are retiring or retired. Generation Xers are getting into their 50s and 60s. Considering this trend in demographics, pulling back from this initiative could have a long-term impact.”

“Attracting and retaining human capital might have a bigger impact. They are customers, but they’re also employees. And a good amount of research shows millennial employees tend to prioritize the importance of purpose and values at the workplace. So if dumping these DEI initiatives is perceived as ‘we’re not treating everyone as whole,’ that could hurt in terms of attracting and retaining higher-quality human capital,” Chin added. 

LGBTQ Nation reached out to Starbuck, Harley-Davidson, Jack Daniel’s, John Deere, Tractor Supply Co., and Lowe’s for comment but did not hear back. Ford declined LGBTQ Nation’s request for comment.

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