By Ray A. Smith

Human-resources professionals are pulling out of their marquee conference on inclusion and some have canceled their memberships in SHRM, the industry's chief lobbying group, after the organization invited conservative activist Robby Starbuck to speak.

Starbuck, 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.

Starbuck is scheduled to take the stage at SHRM's convention in Louisville, Ky., later this month alongside liberal CNN political commentator Van Jones for a conversation moderated by SHRM President Johnny C. Taylor Jr.

Taylor defended the decision to include Starbuck, despite the blowback, saying the group's mission is to showcase diverse points of view so HR professionals have a better understanding of the business landscape.

"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," Taylor said. "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?"

SHRM, formerly known as the Society for Human Resource Management, hasn't experienced any marked drop in membership, Taylor said, adding that some new members have cited the organization's willingness to invite Starbuck as their reason for joining the organization. Attendance at this year's conference, which is expected to total more than 1,000 people, is lower than in past years, he said. Other diversity-related conventions have also experienced declines in interest, he added.

In response to the controversy, Taylor extended the length of the talk with Starbuck to leave time for audience participation. Starbuck said he is happy to open himself up to a question-and-answer session where no questions are off-limits.

"Sure, some say I'm divisive but many others don't, and they appreciate me being their voice," Starbuck said. "Businesses need to understand the entire country, not just one narrow worldview that became dominant in HR circles."

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.

Last year SHRM surprised and rankled many members when it dropped the "E" from DEI, backing away from "equity," which in human-resources parlance is the notion that companies should take steps to level the playing field for workers. Earlier this year, the organization changed the name of its annual Inclusion conference to Blueprint.

Those moves occurred after a June 2023 Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action in college admissions had ripple effects in the business world.

Many legal teams inside companies assumed that once affirmative action was upended, they could face legal challenges to their internal DEI initiatives, many of which were put in place or augmented in recent years. As they braced for increased scrutiny, companies such as Ford Motor and UBS Group stopped providing workplace data to gay-rights lobbying groups and ended special grants directed to businesses led by women of color. Others rebranded race-based employee resource groups as part of marketing departments.

"This was the final straw for me," said Paul LaLonde, vice president of people and culture with a nonprofit organization in the Chicago area, who stressed that he was speaking for himself and not his employer.

Once LaLonde saw HR peers expressing outrage online at the invitation and learning more about Starbuck's beliefs and comments, he turned off the auto-renewal on his SHRM membership. He had been a member for more than a decade.

"He just talks about DEI in inflammatory ways," LaLonde said, adding that he didn't want his money supporting SHRM anymore.

While LaLonde said he wants to hear from people he doesn't agree with, Starbuck's comments feel especially incendiary to him. "You're pretty much saying anybody who's not like me is poison," he added.

Renee Rudczynski, a consultant at Mercer, canceled her plans to attend the conference. "I had friends who are not white call me crying, like this is just one more slap in the face," she said.

Others, such as Susan Bigler, a senior account manager in the South Florida office of a large insurance broker, said they support SHRM's inclusion of Starbuck on the program.

"As leaders, we have to be able to handle those conversations that aren't always comfortable," Bigler said, adding that she was speaking for herself, not her employer. "How else do we grow if we don't listen to other people who maybe don't line up with our thoughts and our belief systems?"

Starbuck said he doesn't feel the need to defend his invitation and that he isn't appearing before the group to fight.

"I'm there to speak honestly, exchange ideas and hopefully spark policies that build better workplaces," he said. "I've reshaped more workplace policies than any other private citizen in the last two years. That's just reality. Ignoring arguments that are clearly resonating with both workers, executives and customers would be a strategic mistake for any organization."

Write to Ray A. Smith at Ray.Smith@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 16, 2025 20:30 ET (00:30 GMT)

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