MOLINE, Ill. — Amid ongoing social media backlash and widespread company layoffs, John Deere announced Tuesday that it is changing how it participates in social and cultural awareness events, and reviewing other internal policies, in a statement published on social platform X.
In Deere's statement, the company committed to the following changes:
- No longer participating in or supporting external social or cultural awareness parades, festivals, or events.
- Business Resource Groups will exclusively be focused on professional development, networking, mentoring, and supporting talent recruitment efforts.
- Auditing all company-mandated training materials and policies to ensure the absence of socially motivated messages, while being in compliance with federal, state, and local laws.
- Reaffirming within the business that the existence of diversity quotas and pronoun identification have never been and are not company policy.
The announcement comes after a July 9 video posted to X by conservative political commentator and filmmaker Robby Starbuck, which has since received 5.2 million views and 27,000 reposts. In the eight-minute video, Starbuck argues that Deere's DEI policies are hurting its business operations.
"I think John Deere would be in a much better position if they were more focused on their core business instead of DEI and woke policies because they've just had to do mass layoffs and announced a production shift to Mexico," Starbuck said.
In June, Starbuck and other conservative social media users criticized Tractor Supply for its longstanding DEI policies. Just weeks later, Tractor Supply announced that it was eliminating DEI roles and retiring its current DEI goals.
News 8 has reached out to Deere for additional information on the new policies, and is waiting to hear back.