A week ago, Harley Davidson announced it was pulling the plug on its DEI commitments after they were revealed in a video posted by Robby Starbuck. Harley wasn't the first company to make this sort of revision to corporate policies. Previously, Tractor Supply, Best Buy and John Deere had all reached the same conclusions.

Today, another large company joins that list. Lowe's announced it would be wrapping up its DEI efforts.

Home-improvement retailer Lowe’s Cos. has become the latest company to change its approach to diversity, equity and inclusion, amid an increase in legal challenges to the corporate world and pressure from conservatives.

In a company memo, Lowe’s said it would no longer participate in the survey process for the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ civil rights group. It also said it would consolidate its business resource groups, representing ”diverse sections” of its employee base, into a single organization.

It probably makes it easier for big companies to step away from the Human Rights Campaign given that the group is openly partisan and is promoting a line of Harris-Walz merchandise on their website. Amusingly, the "Vote Biden" merch is now on clearance. In any case, there are lots of people who shop at Lowe's who aren't planning to be Harris-Walz voters. 

Robby Starbuck, the conservative who has been making videos about these corporations to highlight their DEI policies, took credit for the change. In this cae, he hadn't actually released a video about Lowe's but was working on one behind the scenes. He had contacted Lowe's for comment about its policies in advance of its release and suggests that the trigger for Lowe's announcement. (Starbuck's video about this is below.)

Lowe's downplayed the connection to Starbuck's campaign, claiming the company has been looking at revising its DEI policies since the Supreme Court's Affirmative Action decision.

In the memo, Lowe’s said that like other companies, it began reviewing its diversity and inclusion programs after the Supreme Court last year banned affirmative action in higher education. While that ruling focused on colleges, experts have said that the implications loom large for the private sector...

A Lowe’s representative, via email, said Starbuck’s outreach came “after we already announced changes that had long been in process. Those changes were announced internally over the course of the last few weeks.”

You can see why Lowe's is downplaying this. Their goal is to get the company out of the political crosshairs. Following the lead of a conservative critic will only irritate their left-leaning customers. In fact, if you dip into the comments over at the Washington Post, it already has. It seems the majority of the readership there has decided not to shop at Lowe's because of this.

• "Good to know ... now I won't be shopping at Lowe's!"
• "Lowe's just lost my business. Will no longer shop there."
• "lowe’s decided it could go lower and did in a variety of ways. Not shopping there is a valid ethical response, IMO."
• "White only hiring cannot be far behind. Thanks, republican bigots."
• "With Home Depot firmly in the insurrectionist camp and Lowe’s now caving, where is our DIY store?"
• "Never shop there again."

It goes on and on like this. This is the backlash from the left that Lowe's was probably hoping to avoid by distancing its decision from Robby Starbuck. But it's impossible to feel bad for them at this point. They chose to jump on the left's cultural bandwagon and now there's no way off without upsetting someone. Still, I think Lowe's is worried about more than online backlash. The real danger here is that they will get sued over some of these policies.

Companies are increasingly facing pressure to scale back or do away with DEI initiatives from both external critics and U.S. courts as a wave of legal action challenges policies at scores of companies, including giants such as Starbucks, Meta and Pfizer.

Big corporations need to take a lesson from academia. Announce that you will not take any public stance on political issues and stick to it. If it can work for Harvard, it can work for Lowe's and other corporations. Here's the approach Harvard is taking as of May of this year.

The university and its leaders should not, however, issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function...

The university’s leaders are hired for their skill in leading an institution of higher education, not their expertise in public affairs. When speaking in their official roles, therefore, they should restrict themselves to matters within their area of institutional expertise and responsibility...

To some degree that is what Lowe's had decided to do. They will not sponsor any more Pride parades but they will donate to a few narrow categories such as disaster relief and skilled trades education which have a connection to their core business.

Here's the Robby Starbuck video about the Lowe's decision.

Big news: I messaged @Lowes executives last week to let them know that I planned to expose their woke policies. This morning I woke up to an email where they preemptively made big changes.

Here are the changes:

• Ending participation in the @HRC’s woke Corporate Equality Index… pic.twitter.com/qOUr2JLGV7

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) August 26, 2024