McDonald’s Signals Retreat on DEI Policies After ‘Civil Rights Audit’
“will no longer set goals for representation in hiring and will no longer require its suppliers to sign mutual commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion”
McDonald’s is the latest company to begin distancing itself from DEI policies. Costco may be holding on, but that’s not the way things are trending.
Schools and even states are working to drop DEI policies and even ban them in some cases. McDonald’s is not out of the norm here.
After doing a “civil rights audit,” McDonald’s “will no longer set goals for representation in hiring” or “require its suppliers to sign…commitments to [DEI].”
It “introduced what it called a ‘golden rule,’ in which ‘everyone’ is treated ‘with dignity, fairness and respect.’” pic.twitter.com/tIx5jQ4hrm
— Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) January 6, 2025
Restaurant Business Online reported:
McDonald’s is ending some of its DEI goals
McDonald’s will no longer set goals for representation in hiring and will no longer require its suppliers to sign mutual commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion as part of a set of changes in its inclusion practices announced on Monday.
In a system message, the fast-food giant’s executive leadership team, led by CEO Chris Kempczinski, also said that it is pausing external surveys and will now refer to its diversity team as its “global inclusion team,” which McDonald’s says “better aligns with the team’s work.”
But the Chicago-based company said that it remains committed to inclusion. McDonald’s said it will continue to report its demographic information as part of its annual Purpose and Impact report.
McDonald’s introduced what it called a “golden rule,” in which “everyone” is treated “with dignity, fairness and respect.” The company established a set of principles to evaluate its work along those lines.
Rather than setting representation goals, McDonald’s said it will focus on embedding inclusion practices into its everyday processes and operations.
It is also retiring its mutual commitment pledges with suppliers to focus on “a more integrated discussion with suppliers about inclusion as it relates to business performance.”
The company made the changes after it completed a civil rights audit last year, and following the Supreme Court ruling that declared unconstitutional race-based affirmative action programs at colleges and universities.
FOX Business mentions Robby Starbuck, who you may know from Twitter/X, as one of the conservative activists leading the charge against DEI policies:
The fast-food giant is the first company to adjust its DEI policies in 2025. Last year, a slew of companies made similar changes, including Walmart, Ford Motor Co., John Deere, Lowe’s and Toyota, after activist pressure…
Anti-woke activist and filmmaker Robby Starbuck, who has been leading a campaign exposing major companies’ woke policies, said on X after the announcement that he warned McDonald’s three days ago that he would be reporting on their “woke policies” if they did not agree to change them.
Starbuck has taken credit for forcing changes at the companies named above, as well as Tractor Supply, Harley-Davidson, Polaris, Indian Motorcycle, Coors, Stanley Black & Decker, Jack Daniel’s parent Brown-Forman, DeWalt tools, Craftsman, Caterpillar, Boeing and Nissan.
BIG news: @McDonalds is ending a number of woke DEI policies today. Now let me tell you what’s changing and how it happened.
3 days ago I told McDonald’s that I’d be doing a story on woke policies there. Today they’ve announced the following changes:
• Hiring: They will END… pic.twitter.com/bvFglf6pxw
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) January 6, 2025
And of course, a lot of people are sharing this image.
— 🇺🇲Lily Roslyn West ✡️ (@LilyRoslynWest) January 6, 2025
You might say something like, I’m loving it.
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Comments
Why are you taking a victory lap? These corporations, universities and government agencies are not going to stop discriminating on the basis of race unless they are forced to pay money damages. And money damages going to White men and Asian men. It is going to be tough for a court to approve the sort of financial penalties that will force these miscreants to stop misbehaving, especially when the beneficiaries are the “most privileged” people in a “White supremacist state.”
They need some inclusion of a working gat daym mcflurry machine.
But the same people will have the same jobs only for a slightly differently named department? Then this isn’t change. It’s camouflage.
If they actually commissioned a stand up outside law firm to review their practices and warn whether they were at risk of getting sued (which is how I interpret a “civil rights audit”), then the commitment to actual change may be more than skin deep.
If the audit reported illegal practices, and they just made cosmetic changes in response, then in any future litigation the audit could doom them.
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