Walmart rolls back DEI commitments amid conservative backlash

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Walmart, the world’s largest private employer, said it will roll back initiatives aimed at enhancing DEI, or diversity, equity and inclusion, at the workplace, as such programs face growing legal scrutiny and conservative backlash.

The retailer will replace the term DEI with “belonging” and no longer consider race and gender when choosing suppliers — the latter a practice it adopted after the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Walmart will discontinue DEI training offered by the Racial Equity Institute, a consultancy that offers corporate training services focused on racial inclusion and diversity.

“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 Monday.

The announcement came after conservative activist Robby Starbuck said that “Walmart is ending their woke policies,” in a social media post. The activist has claimed he has successfully pushed other large companies such as Boeing and Ford into altering their DEI policies, The Washington Post reported.

“Last week I told execs at @Walmart that I was doing a story on wokeness there. Instead we had productive conversations to find solutions,” he wrote on X. Starbuck noted that Walmart would no longer participate in the Corporate Equality Index and review all funding of pride events, among other measures.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who has been tapped as the next ambassador to Israel, said Starbuck deserved a standing ovation and that the Arkansas-based company should receive praise for “focusing on the core business of retail.”

A Walmart spokeswoman said that some of the changes, such as not using racial criteria in awarding contracts, had been under review before Starbuck’s online campaign.

The spokeswoman also said the change from “DEI” to “belonging” took place roughly a year ago. Other American businesses and groups have made similar name changes amid growing legal, social and political backlash.

DEI refers to a wide range of practices that seek to increase employment and education opportunities for historically marginalized groups of people. But critics have said the programs end up unintentionally discriminating against nonminorities and that policies should focus on race neutrality.

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Right-leaning public interest groups have filed lawsuits targeting long-standing corporate and government programs that consider race in awarding jobs. Last year the Supreme Court struck down race-conscious admissions at Harvard and other schools.

The electoral victory of president-elect Donald Trump this month has increased expectations that the political momentum against DEI will grow. DEI advocates have expressed concern that Trump could file additional lawsuits against DEI programs in public schools, saying that diversity and equity programs amount to racial discrimination, The Post reported.

The conservative backlash is despite 6 in 10 Americans having said that DEI initiatives are “a good thing,” according to a poll from The Post and Ipsos. Support was higher for specific programs such as internships for underrepresented groups and anti-bias training.

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