Tractor Supply Cuts DEI, Climate Goals After Conservative Outcry: NPR

Tractor Supply Company, which bills itself as the largest rural lifestyle retailer in the US, will eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) roles, withdraw its carbon emissions goals and to stop sponsoring Pride events in response to criticism from conservative activists.

The Brentwood, Tenn.-based company. announced the series of sweeping changes in a statement shared on social media on Thursday, ending a weeks-long right-wing pressure campaign.

“We work hard to live up to our mission and values ​​every day and to represent the values ​​of the communities and customers we serve,” he said. “We have heard from customers that we have disappointed them. We have taken this feedback to heart.”

Tractor Supply sells farm supplies, feed, tools, fencing and apparel — “everything but tractors” — in more than 2,200 stores in 49 states, according to its website. She says her customers are mainly suburban and rural farmers, horse owners, ranchers, merchants and homeowners.

The Fortune 500 company has been recognized nationally as an inclusive and diverse workplace, including last year on the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index and Newsweek’s inaugural list of America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity.

But it has recently become the target of Conservative ire for precisely that reason, as the latest in a growing series of retailers to face backlash over its DEI initiatives – and eventually leave.

Robby Starbuck, a music video director and Republican running unsuccessfully to represent Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District in 2022, launched the campaign against Tractor Supply on X (formerly Twitter) earlier this month.

He wrote on June 6 that it was “time to expose Tractor Supply,” which he said was one of conservatives’ most beloved brands but was at odds with their values. He pointed to DEI’s hiring practices, Pride Month decorations in the office, climate change activism and “sex change funding,” among other complaints.

“I have no pleasure in bringing all this to light,” added Starbuck. “I’m a Tennessean who loves to support TN companies, but as a proud Tennessean, I know these smart priorities don’t align with our state or @TractorSupply’s customer base.”

He urged others to “respectfully” flood Tractor Supply’s corporate offices with calls and emails stating their disapproval and, to the extent possible, start buying products from other stores.

Their campaign appears to have worked, with the Financial Times reporting that it knocked 5% off the Nasdaq-listed company’s share price in the past month. Tractor supply reversed course before the end of the month.

“Going forward, we will secure our activities and provide direct links to our business,” he said.

The changes are placating one group and losing another

These changes include: no longer submitting data to the Human Rights Campaign (an LGBTQ advocacy group), withdrawing its carbon emissions goals to focus on land and water conservation efforts, eliminating roles of its DEI and withdrawing its current DEI targets “while still ensuring a respect for the environment.”

The company also said it will stop sponsoring “non-business activities” such as Pride festivals and get-out-the-vote campaigns, and will instead continue its focus on “rural America priorities” such as education, animal welfare and causes of veterans.

Her statement on X has received more than 71,000 likes and 12,000 comments, many from conservative users applauding the company’s decision and calling for the movement to continue.

“We’re going to get rid of DEI one company at a time,” tweeted TikTok’s Libs, the right-wing, anti-LGBTQ campaign account.

Starbuck hailed the result as a “massive victory for common sense” and said in an eight-minute video that this is “the first Fortune 300 company in our lifetimes to get behind ESG, DEI and all these smart causes and donations, in record speed.”

But this is not good news for everyone. Many X users expressed their disappointment in the company, even vowing not to shop there again and urging others to do the same.

Some, like Tennessee state Sen. Charlane Oliver, a Democrat, were particularly disappointed that the company chose to take this stance during Pride and Juneteenth.

Groups including the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD and the National Black Farmers Association were also quick to denounce Tractor Supply’s move.

“Tractor Supply’s shameful capitulation to the petty whims of anti-LGBTQ extremists puts the company out of touch with the vast majority of Americans who support their LGBTQ friends, family and neighbors,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate told The Advocate Ellis.. “It sends a terrible message, during Pride month, to see a rural staple go out of their way to harm their LGBTQ customers and employees.”

A spokesman for Tractor Supply declined to comment beyond their statement.

Why DEI matters

Shaun Harper, a business professor at the University of Southern California, says that because Tractor Supply stores are located primarily in rural communities, “the case for DEI should have been tailored differently and better suited to those cultural contexts.” “.

Harper told NPR via email that he knows firsthand how activities like Pride parades face opposition in rural communities, like his native South Georgia (which has its own Tractor Supply location).

“Therefore, I am not at all surprised that ‘disappointed customers’ misunderstood DEI as just a narrow set of activities that do not align with their religious, ideological and family values,” he wrote.

Frank Dobbin, a Harvard sociology professor who has studied corporate diversity programs for decades, told NPR that the end of DEI programs hurts business in two ways.

“The most important role of DEI programs is that they promise to democratize access to good jobs in the US,” he explains. “Part of it is just, what kind of society do we want to be? We want to be a society where everyone can succeed – that’s certainly the principle we’re founded on.”

Beyond that, he says, many of the practices that promote diversity—such as recruiting from HBCUs, implementing mentoring programs, and providing management training—are also “just good management” from a business perspective, especially in a market of close work.

He says it’s wrong for companies to abandon low-cost efforts aimed at equalizing opportunities for underrepresented groups like black, Hispanic and LGBTQ+ workers — and signal so publicly that members of those groups are not welcome in the country. their work.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal when a place like Tractor Supply publicly announces that it will no longer follow the programs,” Dobbin adds. “I think it’s not good news that companies are so publicly reneging on their commitments to try to do better.”

Supplying Tractors is part of a wider trend

The Tractor Supply Saga is one example of a much wider range of DEI initiatives around the country.

The 2020 police killing of George Floyd and subsequent protests against racial injustice fueled calls from advocates for companies to do more to hire, retain and promote workers from minority groups.

That led to a nationwide increase in the hiring of chief diversity officers and other positions dedicated to leading DEI’s efforts — and backlash from conservative DEI critics.

“As is often the case, there was a counter movement against it,” Dobbin said. “And conservative activists have been very successful in raising money and funding think tanks, which is often where the people who come after the companies are.”

And their boycotts have had some high-profile successes in recent years, from Target cutting back on its LGBTQ+ merchandise this Pride Month to Bud Light’s parent company putting executives on leave after its partnership with an influencer transgender caused a firestorm last year.

Dobbin says there are also many companies bringing back such initiatives with less fanfare, for example, quietly dropping “diversity” from the title of an internship program.

He thinks anti-DEI efforts will continue to see progress, helped in part by the US Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action in higher education. In the long term, however, Dobbin doesn’t believe “this is the end of progress in promoting diversity in the workforce.”

“We had a moment when the pendulum swung in one direction,” he adds. “He turned in a different direction. Usually we end up somewhere between these two poles.”