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Ford becomes the latest company to scale back its diversity and inclusion policies:
Ford is changing some of its diversity and inclusion policies, joining a growing list of companies altering their approaches amid a changing legal and political environment and online pressure from the right.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said in an email to employees Wednesday that the company has changed some of its policies in the past year. It has shifted its employee resource groups' focus and ended participation in external culture surveys by the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. In 2017, Ford boasted about its recognition from the organization as one of the best places to work for LGBTQ equality.
Right-wing activist Robby Starbuck posted a copy of the email on X and took credit, saying he had told the automaker he was looking into their policies. (Ford confirmed the accuracy of the email to CNN.)
"We are mindful that our employees and customers hold a wide range of beliefs," Farley wrote in the email. "The external and legal environment related to political and social issues continues to evolve."
Farley said that Ford remains committed to creating an "inclusive workspace and building a team that leverages diverse perspectives, backgrounds and thinking styles."
Ford joins Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply Co., John Deere and other companies in revising or pulling back on their diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI), support for gay Pride marches and LGBTQ events, strategies to slow climate change and other social policies.
Some companies have backtracked more than Ford. Tractor Supply, for example, announced in June that it will withdraw its carbon emission reduction goals and eliminate jobs and goals focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. It will also stop sponsoring LGBTQ+ Pride festivals and voting campaigns
Starbuck, a former Hollywood music video director turned conservative activist, has claimed credit for these moves. But business experts have told CNN that Starbuck's activism alone does not fully explain these decisions, and some companies' commitments to diversity and inclusion were thin to start.
The Human Rights Campaign criticized Ford's announcement, saying the company was "abandoning inclusive employees policies and support" and "cowering" to Starbuck.
"Ford Motor Company's shortsighted decisions will have long-term consequences," Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson said in a news release Wednesday. "Ford Motor Company is abandoning its financial duty to recruit and keep top talent from across the full talent pool. In making their purchasing decisions, consumers should take note that Ford Motor Company has abandoned its commitment to our communities."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Monday September 02, @03:33AM (9 children)
I think there are very few people who are actively against working with diverse people. That's different to being against DEI programs though.
There are many (including myself) who believe that DEI programs, while well intentioned, are working against the goal of true equality and are instead sowing discord and resentment (from all sides). Setting different rules for people based on their birth characteristics (or other) is hardly a solid foundation for the end goal of NOT treating people differently for exactly those things.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @05:04AM (8 children)
It's not complex, though you're trying to present it so. The only way you're going to have a workforce in the USA that reflects the actual population of the USA is to stop hiring qualified people because they're white. And because racist hirning policies have long been both formal and informal practice since forever, you're going to have to look closely at every white hire to be sure they're actually the best candidate instead of a good candidate who's white. And racist white people get real angry when they aren't shown automatic preference over non-whites.
You are boring as fuck repeating this tired trope.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Monday September 02, @05:30AM (3 children)
Oh, if that were only the case. Sadly, we are instead doing the opposite - setting hard numbers of hires who are explicitly not white, or not male, or not straight.
I said:
Please tell me exactly how you managed to translate that into giving preference to white people?
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @05:48AM (2 children)
Different AC here. Now you're starting to see the irrationality of the brainwashed liberal. You're wasting your time and effort. They're never willing to open their minds and think about alternate points of view. They're always quick to argue, fight, and be defensive of their narrow view. They don't give themselves time to consider facts and do some rational thinking.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @02:01PM (1 child)
Downmodding that "troll" proves my point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 04, @07:56AM
The reason it was modded "troll" is because you are denigrating a significant proportion of the US population with no evidence or justification; behaviour that is commonly regarded as trollish.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @06:19AM
FTFY
(Score: 5, Insightful) by khallow on Monday September 02, @06:24AM (1 child)
You do realize the second sentence contradicts the first? "stop hiring qualified people because they're white" surely means one doesn't hire people who are merely "the best candidate" who's white. I get that probably wasn't your intent. But this isn't the first time such a defense has come out garbled.
"Preference" like a good candidate being tossed for a bad candidate merely because the former is white? Because that's what the real angry people think goes on.
I think what is most absurd about your post though is what is "white"? Back in the early 20th century, for example, "white" meant a much narrower ethnic grouping than it allegedly does now. For example, one of the amusing things about H. P. Lovecraft stories is their casual racism. Among other things, he makes a distinction between white ethnicity and the "swarthy" ethnicities of contemporary immigrants (Irish, Scots, Jews, and Eastern European for example) who often had a propensity for worship of particular gods like Dagon or Cthulhu. White means a growing blob of people many who happen to have ancestors who were routinely more disadvantaged than ethnic groups of today. If the political racism of today's ethnic categorization hadn't occurred, it is likely that most identifiable ethnicities of today would be part of the blob as well, particularly Hispanics who are no different than their counterparts of the days of Lovecraft (slightly different looking with the primary characteristics being poverty and habitually speaking a language other than English).
Then we get to ethnic mixing. Even with the limited mixed ethnicity of the past century, we still have (according to this study [cell.com]) around 6-7% of the US's total population are people with mixed White and African American genetics. With the increase in mixed race marriages and such, we'll get to the point where this stilted narrative of racism just won't make sense. The alleged oppressors will be of similar ethnic mix to the alleged oppressed.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 02, @11:44PM
> ... around 6-7% of the US's total population are people with mixed White and African American genetics.
That sounds like good news to me, the sooner we are all mutts the happier I'll be. It's the pure breeds that are high strung and cause trouble.
(Score: 2) by EEMac on Tuesday September 03, @02:10PM
> stop hiring qualified people because they're white.
This is why DEI policies destroy companies.