Will Hild of Consumers' Research applauds the effort, which according to Reuters is co-led by Texas AG Ken Paxton and Iowa AG Brenna Bird. Hild explains that the controversy began a few weeks ago when a conservative activist group put a shareholder proposal before that board, asking it to conduct a report on the legal liabilities Costco is incurring with its DEI program.
"Costco has one of the most strident DEI programs in terms of how it describes what they're doing, race and sex-based quotas for hiring at that company," Hild continues. "And the company … doubled down and said 'No, we're not going to change anything.'
"They seem to be colluding with Al Sharpton and his merry band of race hustlers to actually push the company more in that direction."
Pointing to the letter from the AGs, Hild says this is "exactly what you'd hope attorneys general would be doing" in terms of enforcing the civil rights of their citizens and combatting discrimination.
"We've been pushing against DEI broadly speaking; we've put out 'Woke Alerts,' we've notified people, named and shamed companies that engage in this kind of discrimination," he explains. "Kia, TJ Maxx, Black & Decker actually pulled down the vast majority of their DEI programs after we attacked them.
"So, to be clear we've not … done anything against Costco specifically. But we are out there, just like Robby Starbuck and Christopher Rufo, naming and shaming companies and getting them to pull back from these racist, sexist DEI programs."
As reported last week, Target Corp. joined rival Walmart and some other major U.S. companies in scaling back their diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Activist Starbuck described that as "MASSIVE news" in an X post.
