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Coors beer maker latest corporation to pull back DE&I initiatives

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Coors beer maker latest corporation to pull back DE&I initiatives

Bloomberg News
| September 10, 2024
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Molson Coors Beverage Co. is cutting back some of its corporate diversity efforts, joining a corporate retreat hastened by an anti-DE&I social media campaign.

Molson Coors sent a memo to employees Sept. 3 saying it will stop linking executive compensation to employee representation, scrap supplier diversity goals, and no longer engage with the Human Rights Campaign’s corporate rankings. A spokesman for the firm shared the memo with Bloomberg News.

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck had posted a copy of the memo earlier Tuesday on his X social media account and said that he had been preparing to begin an attack on the brewer for its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. 

The maker of Coors is joining half a dozen companies including Ford Motor Co., Lowe’s Cos., and Harley-Davidson Inc. in pulling back from DE&I policies.

The Molson Coors spokesman had no additional comment beyond providing the memo. 

This isn’t the first time that social media-driven backlash has affected the beer market. Anheuser-Bush InBev NV and its Bud Light brand was punished for a promotion featuring a transgender influencer last year, boosting sales for rival Molson Coors’ light beer.

Starbuck, a music-video producer turned influencer, has claimed credit for changes to DE&I programs at a string of US companies in recent months. While other conservative activists like Edward Blum and Stephen Miller, the former senior adviser for President Donald Trump, have filed lawsuits and regulatory complaints against businesses for their DE&I initiatives, Starbuck has relied on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, to generate popular outrage.

US companies have been scaling back DE&I programs that some conservatives say discriminates against white men. The backlash follows a wave of pro-DE&I policies being introduced across US businesses in response to employee and customer anger over the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a white policeman.

Conservative activists are telling companies to drop activism and focus on making products. DE&I supporters warn that employees may be harmed by the pullback.

Tractor Supply Co., Deere & Co. and Harley-Davidson revised their DE&I initiatives after Starbuck posted a stream of attacks on X complaining about what he said were “woke” policies out of step with the companies’ customers. Starbuck took credit for DE&I changes at home improvement retailer Lowe’s, while Jack Daniel’s whiskey maker Brown-Forman Corp. also told staff last month it was ending DE&I programs.