Industry officials boycotting 'marquee conference' after invite to Trump supporter
A major Society for Human Resource Management conference slated to be held Louisville, Kentucky, next month is facing a rebellion over an invitation extended to a high-profile supporter of Donald Trump who has been invited as a speaker.
According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, anti-DEI influencer Robby Starbuck was selected to appear on a panel with CNN’s Van Jones, and the auditorium may end up emptier than planned due to a boycott.
The Journal’s Ray A. Smith reported that SHRM, the industry’s chief lobbying group, is seeing professionals pull out of their “marquee conference,” with some, members ending their relationship with the organization.
The report notes that Starbuck, is “... the driving force behind online campaigns to end diversity, equity and inclusion programs, has prompted companies including Walmart, Harley-Davidson and Tractor Supply to abandon or dial back their DEI efforts. His status as a headline guest for an industry that has for years made DEI policies in Corporate America a central plank of its platform is a sign of just how quickly companies have reversed course on those practices.”
HRM President Johnny C. Taylor Jr. defended the invite in a statement, claiming, “The only way you can effectively build a strategy to support your point of view on diversity is to understand what the other point of view is. Particularly in the case of someone who has been quite successful at getting major companies to back off of their D&I initiatives, why wouldn’t you want to hear?”
Taylor suggested maybe ending Starbuck’s appearance with a question and answer period.
The journal is reporting, “Many SHRM members have taken to LinkedIn and other social-media platforms to condemn the decision to host Starbuck, who has called DEI ‘poison’ on X, where he has more than 850,000 followers. Some cited the invitation to Starbuck as another sign of what they view as SHRM’s backpedaling on DEI in response to growing pushback on the programs.”
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