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Jack Daniel's follows Harley-Davidson as the latest woke brand to scrap DEI in the face of angry customers
Jack Daniel's has become the latest all-American brand to scrap its diversity efforts in the face of angry conservative customers and a potential damaging boycott.
The whiskey maker, Brown-Forman, wrote to employees on Wednesday saying it was reversing course on its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) schemes.
The Kentucky-based firm said it would stop linking executive pay to DEI progress and exit an annual ranking of LGBTQ-friendly firms.
It also vowed to cut its diversity rules for suppliers and end woke corporate training sessions.
That's according to a copy of the letter shared on X by anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck and confirmed by Brown-Forman.
Jack Daniel's, part of Brown-Forman, says the landscape for DEI efforts has changed
Jack Daniel's was just the latest target of Nashville-based conservative influencer Robby Starbuck
Jack Daniel's spokeswoman Elizabeth Conway told The Mail that the company had decided to 'evolve our diversity and inclusion strategy.'
As of Thursday, the $6.5 billion firm's webpage on 'Diversity & Inclusion' appeared to have been taken down.
The decision follows similar moves in recent weeks from Harley-Davidson, Tractor Supply, and John Deere, which were all targeted by Starbuck.
Corporate America rolled out DEI schemes to help reverse historic injustices amid the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, but they've increasingly stirred divisions and fallen out of favor.
Advocates of DEI say it helps get more women and minorities into jobs and colleges, but critics say it too often denies opportunities to straight, white men, even when they're better candidates.
Though polls show broad public support for DEI, voters also object to firms getting too involved in politics.
Conway acknowledged that the landscape had changed since her company launched DEI efforts in 2019.
'The world has evolved, our business has changed, and the legal and external landscape has shifted dramatically, particularly within the United States,' she told The Mail.
'With these new dynamics at play, Brown-Forman must adjust its work to ensure it continues to drive our business results while appropriately recognizing the current environment in which we find ourselves.'
According to the letter, bourbon executives will no longer get bonuses linked to progress on DEI.
The firm's latest annual report shows that, while most executive pay was tied to sales growth, 10 percent of short-term pay was linked to accomplishing progress on diversity.
Starbuck, 35, a Cuban-American filmmaker who was also a 2022 Republican House candidate for Tennessee, celebrated the reversal on social media.
He said he was 'winning' and bringing 'sanity back to corporate America.'
Unlike his previous campaigns, Brown-Forman appeared to know that Starbuck was going to launch a social media assault on the whiskey maker, and took preemptive action.
Employees labels bottles of Woodford Reserve bourbon whiskey at a distillery in Versailles, Kentucky, a Brown-Forman site.
Starbuck posted victoriously about getting another major company to change course on DEI
Starbuck included pages from the whiskey maker's letter to staff about the DEI reversal
The celebrated Jack Daniel's Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee, in 2021
'They must have been tipped off by us going through employee LinkedIn pages,' Starbuck posted.
'We're now forcing multi-billion dollar organizations to change their policies without even posting, just from fear they have of being the next company that we expose.'
He gave the distiller 'credit for not waiting for their brand to be destroyed' and urged other companies to follow suit.
'Save me time and make these changes now before we get to you,' he warned.
Among his future targets, Starbuck is eyeing the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), an advocacy group that ranks firms based on benefits for LGBTQ staff.
His earlier targets have already changed course after his anti-DEI campaigns.
Motorcycle-maker Harley-Davidson on Monday said that it no longer has minority-owned supplier spending goals.
It will also drop socially-motivated training for employees and make other changes to back away from diversity programs.
The company stopped operating a corporate DEI function in April, it said in a statement posted to social media platform X. Harley will also drop out of the HRC program.
Tractor maker John Deere and farming retailer Tractor Supply scrapped their DEI programs after being blacklisted by Starbuck earlier this year.
Deere last month said it will no longer participate in 'cultural awareness parades' and its business resource groups will focus 'exclusively' on professional development, networking, mentoring and supporting talent recruitment.
Advocates of DEI schemes say they bring more black, brown, female, and queer talent into offices and colleges and raise morale across the board.
But critics say they're a 'woke' virtue-signaling exercise that fosters backlash discrimination against straight, white men.