Tractor Supply cuts DEI, climate goals after conservative outcry ( www.npr.org )

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Tractor Supply Company, which bills itself as the largest rural lifestyle retailer in the U.S., will eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) roles, withdraw its carbon emissions goals and stop sponsoring Pride events in response to criticism from conservative activists.

Robby Starbuck, a music video director and Republican who ran unsuccessfully to represent Tennessee's 5th Congressional District in 2022, launched the campaign against Tractor Supply on X (formerly Twitter) earlier this month.

The company also said it would stop sponsoring “nonbusiness activities” like Pride festivals and voting campaigns, and instead continue its focus on “rural America priorities” such as education, animal welfare and veteran causes.

Starbuck praised the outcome as a “massive victory for sanity,” and said in an eight-minute video that this is the “first Fortune 300 company in our lifetimes to go backwards on ESG, DEI and all these woke causes and donations, in record speed.”

“Tractor Supply’s embarrassing capitulation to the petty whims of anti-LGBTQ extremists puts the company out of touch with the vast majority of Americans who support their LGBTQ friends, family, and neighbors,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis told The Advocate.

Shaun Harper, a professor of business at the University of Southern California, says because Tractor Supply stores are primarily located in rural communities, “the case-making for DEI should’ve been differently framed and better customized for those cultural contexts.”

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