HRC President Kelly Robinson speaks at the Tribe during the “Kill the Hate: Stand Up for Tennessee” rally, Thursday, March 9, 2023, in Nashville, Tennessee. Photo: Nicole Hester/USA TODAY NETWORK via IMAGN
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) accused companies including Molson Coors and Ford of “abandoning their values and backing away from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts” in the wake of the right-wing pressure campaign.
At the same time, HRC released new survey data showing that DEI rollbacks by major corporations in recent years have been deeply unpopular with LGBTQ+ people and have alienated many consumers. The data was released in response to the case of far-right activist and conspiracy theorist Robbie Starbuck, who allegedly forced a number of high-profile companies, including Ford, Lowe’s, and Harley-Davidson, to drastically scale back their DEI efforts through public pressure campaigns. Starbucks, which has been accused of having chemicals in its tap water that are reportedly turning kids gay, has more than 500,000 followers on X.
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“The LGBTQ+ community is a driving force in our economy, and we want to work for and support companies that support us. Attacks on DEI initiatives are shortsighted and make the workplace less safe and inclusive for hardworking Americans of all ages and backgrounds,” Orlando Gonzalez, HRC’s senior vice president of programs, research and training, said in an emailed statement. “This new data reinforces that when companies like Molson Coors, Ford and others abandon their company values and back away from their diversity, equity and inclusion commitments, they risk losing both great employees and consumer dollars.”
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According to the dataAccording to the survey, 80.1% of LGBTQ+ adults said they would boycott a company that rolls back DEI measures, and 75.7% of LGBTQ+ adults said they have a less favorable view of such a company. Additionally, more than half (52.5%) would encourage others to join them in the boycott, and a similar proportion (51.7%) would delete all profiles, credit cards, and apps associated with the company. About 28% of respondents said they would participate in protests or sign petitions against the company.
Additionally, 72.4% of LGBTQ+ adults said they would feel less supported by their company if their workplace rolled back inclusion efforts for the community, 66.6% said they would feel less safe, and 54% said their mental health would worsen. A third of respondents said they would be less productive, and 19.6% said they would look for a different job entirely.
Meanwhile, more than 95% of LGBTQ+ adults said they feel a company supports its community if it scores highly on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI) — a measure of a company’s LGBTQ+-inclusive policies — and half said a CEI score of 100% would mean there is strong support for the community.
Similarly, the data reflects that members of the LGBTQ+ community feel supported by companies that sponsor Pride parades, hire leaders, donate to LGBTQ+ nonprofits, do community outreach, and include queer representation in marketing and product development.
Human Rights Campaign president Kelly Robinson said Starbuck was a “MAGA bully and Republican reject” whose “only business experience is peddling vitamins sold by people profiting from COVID disinformation.”
HRC also Washington Post-Ipsos Poll The results found that most Americans support DEI measures and feel that such measures help better support marginalized people while ensuring important outreach to the general public.
The survey was conducted in partnership with Community Marketing & Insights (CMI) from August 8-18. Respondents were drawn from the broader LGBTQ+ Research Panel, a nationally representative dataset of more than 50,000 LGBTQ+ people. 2,490 people across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. were surveyed, of which 2,432 were eligible to participate in the data.
The data is weighted by HRC to represent the total U.S. population based on age, race/ethnicity, sex, education level, and geographic region compared to census data, and PRRI political affiliation. 2023 Map of American ValuesWeights were generated in a Stata program and verified by hand calculations. The margin of error for the study is +/- 4.6%.
