By MICHAEL VIVAR
Starbucks began as a medium-sized coffee bean wholesaler in 1971 at Seattle's Pike's Peak Market. They moved into the brick and mortar café business and swiftly grew.
As Starbucks became a global entity, they also maintained the value of having a workforce from several backgrounds both in their stores and corporate structure.
The company didn't coin the term, but this value became known as DEI or diversity, equity and inclusion. It was adopted by many businesses in a wide array of sectors.
The coalescing Trump administration has been slashing DEI policies in the federal government and have been openly mocking private companies that promote them.
A laundry list of major companies such as Amazon, Google and McDonald's have already begun slashing DEI in an attempt to escape Trump's capricious wrath.
Consumers have been boycotting and protesting businesses that don't offer support to marginalized communities including BIPOC and LGBT+ populations.
This leaves all eyes on worldwide companies such as Starbucks, which have been mostly quiet about their plans for DEI moving forward.
In September 2024, the company abruptly replaced their sitting CEO Laxman Narasimhan with former Chipotle CEO Brian Niccol.
Niccol's first act as CEO was to immediately adjust the Starbucks Code of Conduct which toned down DEI hiring practices and worker protections.
It seems clear that Starbucks is not committed to supporting Black, LGBTQ and disabled communities the way that those communities have supported Starbucks.
“We're supposed to be bringing out-of-the-box thinking and innovation, and you cannot do that unless you've got diversity." - Julia Sweet, Accenture CEO