The nation’s largest retailer has scaled back its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, stepping away from what has become a powerful political third rail.
Walmart will no longer fund the Center for Racial Equity or share data with the Human Rights Campaign, an organization focused on LGBTQ+ rights, the New York Times reported. Among other measures, the largest employer in the U.S. will also stop allowing third-party vendors to sell pro-LGBTQ+ merchandise marketed toward children on its website.
“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 obtained by the NYT.
The move followed conservative activist Robby Starbuck’s effort to coordinate an anti-DEI boycott of Walmart ahead of the holiday shopping season.
“This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America,” he said in a social media post on Monday.
Companies including Lowe’s, Harley-Davidson and Tractor Supply Co. have walked back their DEI policies in recent months following backlash from their conservative customers and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action at colleges in 2023.
DEI initiatives are expected to face even stronger headwinds during President-elect Donald Trump’s second term.
Handwringing about these policies has hit the commercial real industry as well, according to the 2024 edition of Bisnow’s annual series on the topic.
Publicly traded commercial real estate firms, including KKR, JLL and AvalonBay Communities, have cited DEI as a potential risk factor in investor materials, noting that recent legal rulings might impact their hiring practices. The companies have brought in consultants to ensure they’re on the right side of the law amid a wave of litigation targeting DEI policies.
“I imagine that there are a number of senior officials and companies now — even the most committed to DEI — who are trying to figure out, ‘How do we hold the line and keep doing what we’re doing in a way that doesn’t draw too much attention from the new administration?’” Michael Posner, a professor of ethics and finance at NYU Stern School of Business, told Bisnow.
Racial and gender diversity in commercial real estate has grown consistently over the last four years, but the upper echelons of the industry remain mostly white and male. C-suites at the 100 companies Bisnow investigated are more than 85% white and 70% male.
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