Ford & Lowe’s Become Latest Companies To Scale Back Their DEI Policies

Lowes and Ford are downsizing their diversity, equity and inclusion practices. This comes after a number of other companies, like Tractor Supply, Jack Daniels , Harley Davidson , have abandoned their DEI policies - or at the very least, walked back on how involved they want to be in them. And you might be asking why these business are, all of the sudden, dropping their DEI commitments? The answer is money. If the whole Bud Light situation (albeit it mostly in the past now but still hurting the beer brand nonetheless) taught the rest of the world anything, its that the consumer - or at least the majority of consumers - is still king. It's estimated that Bud Light partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney ultimately lost them over $1 billion (with a "B"). Other companies watched the "Bud Light Boycott" unfold, said "We don't want that to happen to us," and thus have cut back on anything that consumers could label as "woke." Now obviously, on the flip side of things, suddenly dropping DEI policies, or limiting the scope of them, isn't a great look either. Companies like Lowes and Ford have been accused of "no longer caring about the inclusion of employees," and throwing their core values to the wayside. However, these companies apparently view that as less of a risk than taking an axe to their DEI policies altogether. Ford even said this in a memo indicating that things that were really important to them just a couple of years ago no longer have value to them: "We made the decision early this year to stop participating in external culture surveys such as the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index and various 'best places to work' lists." https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1829134907488022748 Like Ford, the home improvement store Lowes made an announcement that they'd no longer take part in surveys conducted by and for LGBTQ advocacy groups. And they also stated that their days of sponsoring DEI festivals and parades were over, and would additionally just view diverse workers as one big group (rather than each different diversity group being recognized).