Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, has announced it will no longer consider race and gender policies when awarding supplier contracts after facing pressure from conservative activist Robby Starbuck.
The company is rolling back several diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives following criticism that they were harmful to certain groups.
As part of the changes, Walmart is winding down the Center for Racial Equity, a non-profit organisation that received $100 million in funding from the retailer in 2020. The company will also end some racial equity staff training, review its support for Pride events, and withdraw from rankings by the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy group.
Additionally, Walmart stated it would monitor online merchants for sexual or transgender products marketed to children and remove items deemed inappropriate.
The commitments come after Robby Starbuck, a conservative “anti-woke” activist and former music video director, threatened to mobilise his 700,000 followers on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to boycott Walmart ahead of Black Friday if changes were not made. In a post on X, Starbuck said: “I’m happy to have secured these changes before Christmas when shoppers have very few large retail brands they can spend money with who aren’t pushing woke policies.”
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