Tennessee political commentator and filmmaker Robby Starbuck on Monday announced that Walmart Inc. confirmed it would drop its “woke” corporate policies, including its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) program, in response to questions about its practices.
“Walmart is ending their woke policies. I can now exclusively tell you what’s changing and how it happened,” wrote Starbuck in a post to the social media platform X, revealing he contacted the company’s executives to inform them he was preparing to release a story about the corporate “wokeness” at Walmart.
In response to Starbuck’s inquiry, Starbuck reported that Walmart offered seven concessions.
Walmart will monitor its digital marketplace in order “to identify and remove inappropriate sexual and / or transgender products marketed to children,” and will “[r]eview all funding” for LGBT events, “to avoid funding inappropriate sexualized content targeting kids.”
MASSIVE news: Walmart is ending their woke policies. I can now exclusively tell you what’s changing and how it happened.
Last week I told execs at @Walmart that I was doing a story on wokeness there. Instead we had productive conversations to find solutions.
Below are the… pic.twitter.com/BD02xJQ0X2
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) November 25, 2024
The company also reportedly pledged to end its Racial Equity Center, though the company noted to Starbuck that the program “was established in 2020 as a special five-year initiative.”
Walmart also told Starbuck it plans to evaluate its suppliers to ensure the company is not selecting contracts solely based on diversity, will cease determining eligibility for financing based on diversity data, and maintains that it does not use a race-based quota system to fulfill diversity requirements.
It also committed to ending its current racial equity training program and will cease using the term Latinx, a gender-neutral term for Latinos disliked by many in that community.
Starbuck also reported that Walmart pledged to discontinue all of its DEI programs.
“Walmart will discontinue the use of DEI as a term while ensuring a respectful and supportive environment,” the company reportedly told Starbuck. “Our focus is on Belonging for ALL associates and customers.”
The Tennessee filmmaker noted that Walmart remains the largest employer in the United States, with more than 1.6 million employees, and predicted the corporate changes would have a ripple effect through other companies.
Starbuck added, “I have to give their executives major credit because this will send shockwaves throughout corporate America. This is the biggest win yet for our movement to end wokeness in corporate America.”
Walmart’s decision to drop its training programs, policies, and diversity initiatives is the latest in a series of companies to announce changes after Starbuck’s inquiries. He previously secured similar commitments from Tractor Supply, John Deer, Hardley Davidson, Jack Daniels, Lowes, and Ford, among other corporations.
He recently told Michael Patrick Leahy, the editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star, that companies like Walmart seem to hire consultants to prepare their response to his inquiries in a bid to avoid poor publicity.
“[Companies] could stop wasting these millions of dollars on consultants. If they really want to figure out how to not draw the ire of my investigations, they can just drop me an email and I’ll tell them for free, and they can take those millions of dollars and distribute it among their employees,” Starbuck said during an October appearance on The Michael Patrick Leahy Show.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Robby Starbuck” by Robby Starbuck. Background Photo “Walmart Store” by Random Retail. CC BY 2.0.
