Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

All right, welcome back. A big shock from a big retailer, Tractor Supply, which actually is huge, got more than 2,200 stores all across America. Last night, coming out and saying they are cutting all of their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. That includes jobs as well focused on DEI. Tractor Supply adds it will no longer submit employment data to the Human Rights Campaign and focus more on land and water conservation than lowering emissions. Tractor Supply says they were doing this in response to customer feedback.

Uh, Kevin, here's the thing I find about Tractor Supply's move so weird. Okay, whether you like DEI or have an opinion on DEI or whatever the hell it is, that's fine. But I don't know if I've seen a company put out a press release. Well, I think the most important question is, when you're running a business, and this is a very good debate. I'm adding this case to my Harvard teachings this fall. I'm right beside Anheuser-Busch, still losing market share. Did they do... I'm going to ask the students a very simple question: Who do you serve when you start a business? No matter how large it is, large or small, let's remember 62% of jobs in America are created by companies with 5 to 500 employees, so it's relevant for them as well.

Who's your number one constituency? Well, it's your customer. Who's number two? Your employees. Who's number three? Your investors and the bank that supports you. If you don't take care of all of them consistently, over and over again, you don't have a business. And so I think this company is looking at it saying, "Are we really responsible for climate change, a social agenda, gender identity? Are these the things that we should actually be investing in, or should we take care of our customers?"

And I'm pretty sure that when you're a farmer and you go in there and you pick up a bag of hog feed and you take it back to the barn and you stick it in the trough and you say to the hogs, "Listen, everybody, this company does not support a social agenda. Are you okay with that here in the hog community? If not, do not eat this feed." I think they're going to eat the feed, and I think that's really what the company is saying.

The pendulum is swinging back to normal. America is saying enough already. This stuff is too crazy. It doesn't work. It's not the core of what a business is about. It's not the DNA of success, and it doesn't take care of our employees and our customers. I'm going to make a statement about this to push this agenda back in everybody's face. Good for them.

I think diversity is fantastic for business because it's the right thing to do, because we live in a diverse society. But when you try and mandate agendas on businesses that are really trying to solve all the problems just to stay competitive, stay in business, and provide for their customers and their employees, let's remember something: the government itself, the government of the United States, can't solve all these moral and social issues. How do you expect a business to?

And I think by pressuring them this way and trying to get them to contort themselves towards any one agenda—whether it be climate change, gender identity, social issues, diversity—they just can't do it. It's not in their DNA. And so at the end of the day, they're smart. They want to provide for their customers, and the right thing to do is to provide for a diverse base because America is diverse. But you can't make them do it, and that's really what we're debating here.

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