DEI initiatives are facing scrutiny at various U.S. companies. In the last year, Tractor Supply, John Deere and Lowe’s have scaled back DEI programs. We spoke with conservative activist Robby Starbuck on his perspective regarding eliminating DEI programs at companies, organizations, and institutions.
Transcript:
Conway Gittens: Robby Starbuck joins us here at TheStreet. Mr. Starbuck, thanks for coming by.
Robby Starbuck: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Conway
Conway Gittens: So, listen, there are a lot of conversations in the business world right now about diversity, equity and inclusion. How do you contribute to this conversation?
Robby Starbuck: Well, I’m arguing that we need to go back to different metrics that really we need to return to fairness, merit and treating each other nicely. I mean, I think it’s fairly simple what we need to do. The law already does the heavy lifting in terms of eliminating discrimination, which I don’t think anybody is arguing in favor of discrimination. We just believe the law exists already to prevent racial discrimination, discrimination based on sex, and that that is, you know, what companies essentially should be following. But beyond the law, what these programs have largely become is a Trojan horse for left wing policy. And that’s where I think it gets inappropriate because there’s no reason for public companies to be injecting divisive issues into the business, because in nearly every case, there’s no real core business reason why you would involve these things that are dividing your customer base and your own employees. So I see it as something that is just purely nonsensical to do when you’re a public company and you really have a fiduciary duty to your shareholders when you know that this could be something that really upsets a large base of your customers and could lose you money.
Conway Gittens: All right. You said that there’s no business justification. But listen, I was looking at some statistics from the national institute of health. The so-called minority population is now 50% of the total population in the United States. So tell me, why should half of the nation’s population not be reflected in boardrooms, not be reflected in office buildings, not be reflected on factory floors, especially when decisions are being made that not only impacts them, but also impacts the wider population.
Robby Starbuck: Well, I’m one of those people. I’m Latino, you know, I’m Cuban. My family’s from a mixed ethnicity. And so I understand, you know, sort of the reflexive question. But the reality is, I don’t think anybody is making that argument. I’m not saying anybody from any certain group should not be reflected in a boardroom. I just think decisions need to be made on the basis of merit. And so, you know, it’s sort of similar to what we saw happen in education, where standards changed as a byproduct of the desire to increase racial diversity. I’m a bigger fan of judging people as individuals and saying, hey, this individual would be fantastic for this job or they’re eminently qualified to do this, this job or take on this position. And I think that’s really what our country should and is about when it’s at its best, it’s really where we need to reorient things to look at the individual instead of trying to change standards to artificially increase quotas. Because here’s the reality. There’s a lot of civil rights heroes who fought for the laws that exist today that say you cannot discriminate on the basis of race that goes in hiring and firing. So if there’s a company out there that is skirting the law and they’re breaking it, that company needs to be held responsible. DEI programs are not doing that, though. DEI programs are a lot more intent on selling things like recommending that employees read ibram kendi how to be an anti-racist, which ironically says inside of it, to be an anti-racist, you have to be anti-capitalist. Then they are on actually focusing on uniting their employees or getting good people into good jobs. We can fix these issues and have unity in America again and have racial harmony, but it’s not going to be born out of continuing the force known as DEI…..
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