Right-wing activist leads charge against U.S. equality push

Ordinary Americans have "had enough" of inclusivity and diversity policies at U.S. 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 auto maker 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 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.

- 'Have their voice heard' -

"One of the great things that Trump did was he changed the dynamics in politics where outsiders could not get inside. They couldn't have their voice heard," said Starbuck who has previously run for office, but insists he has no new plans to seek election.

He questioned why he would want to "muddy" himself when he can instead shape the debate from the comfort of his farm in the home of country music, Nashville in Tennessee where he lives with his activist lawyer wife and their three children.

"We've accomplished more in two months than any other social movement (has with) corporate America in the last decade -- probably the last two decades," Starbuck said, though he did not provide details.

"There's a massive number of people behind me."

He credits the huge number of supporters he has amassed as well as whistleblowers from within the corporations themselves, opposed to management initiatives.

"They don't want to have their lives dictated by this group of people who think that they should be able to force their ideology into every part of our life, into our kids' schools, into our workplaces, everywhere," he said.