Right-Wing Activist Leads Charge Against US Equality Push

AFP/APP

New York: Ordinary Americans have “had enough” of inclusivity and diversity policies at US companies, according to Robby Starbuck, who has led a one-man campaign against the controversial initiatives.

In just three months, he has convinced half a dozen US firms to roll back their so-called “DEI” policies—practices aimed at righting historical discrimination but that the right has long criticized as unfairly targeting white people and men, including motor giant Ford.

In an undated memo published by Starbuck this week and confirmed by Ford, the automaker said it would not impose quotas for minority dealerships or suppliers. “Sanity is coming for corporate America,” Starbuck wrote on X.

His campaign of video “exposes” and letter writing has seen Harley Davidson motorcycles, John Deere tractors, and whiskey maker Jack Daniel’s abandon their own policies, some of which advocated for LGBTQ workers and racial minorities. “You end up in a position where every employee is being told you need to consume this one ideological sort of viewpoint and the other viewpoints are not represented,” he told AFP.

“People are entitled to their views, and we need to have a system that creates equal footing for everybody and doesn’t force any one ideology down everybody’s throats.”

The pro-LGBTQ Human Rights Campaign, from which Ford broke as part of its step back from DEI, called Starbuck an “extremist troll” and said he was using corporate America “as pawns.” HRC had assessed Ford as part of its corporate equality index.

Music video director and producer Starbuck said that before becoming an activist, he was a supporter of Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in November’s election. He rails against policies that champion what he describes as “woke culture” that aim to remedy racial inequalities and promote LGBTQ rights, which gained traction following the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.

He has also campaigned against the imposition of anti-climate change policies on companies, and in a recent video on X, where he has 600,000 followers, denounced US militarism abroad. “We deserve to have our ideology, our ideas, respected in the same way that everybody else wants to be respected,” he said.

Starbuck, who wears his hair in a tight ponytail, said that the fight against “woke” goes beyond Trump.