Walmart is the latest company to drop controversial DEI initiatives the retailer announced on Monday. Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a policy that experts now believe increase divisions within culture and is dangerous to the work enviroment.
“We’ve been on a journey and know we aren’t perfect, but every decision comes from a place of wanting to foster a sense of belonging, to open doors to opportunities for all our associates, customers and suppliers and to be a Walmart for everyone,” the company said in a statement.
The nation’s largest physical retailer says it will suspend financing LGBTQ and other events whose goals a re to influence a child’s sexuality. It will also end participation in the Human Rights Coalition’s Corporate Equality Index which rates companies and cities on their policies promoting LGBTQ issues to employees.
Forbes estimates Walmart’s 2024 revenue will end the year at $657.3 billion
Conservative filmmaker Robby Starbuck, who has exposed other companies for their DEI policies, was set to release a documentnary about Walmart and was in the process of interviewing company executives.
Walmart will also update its Supplier Inclusion program whose stated purpose was to promote companies that were 51 percent owned, among other classes, by LGBT individuals, favoring them over heterosexual-owned companies. The company had committed in 2020 to spend $100 million over 5 years on the initiative.
LGBTQ clothing targeting children
In a major move, the company will “identify and remove inappropriate sexual and/or transgender products marketed to children.” This includes chest binders and other items sold in stores and on the website, according to the statement.
Starbuck’s efforts have also forced other companies to change their policies after his exposes brought broader public scrutiny. John Deere, Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s, Tractor Supply and others all dropped similar DEI policies.
–Metro Voice and wire services