WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - Michaela Estruth: Consumers Should Cautiously Support Shift Against DEI

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

Michaela Estruth is a senior studying history and journalism at Hillsdale College, where she is the senior editor of Hillsdale College’s The Collegian and host of various radio shows. She joins Malia Thibado on WRFH to discuss her recent essay, "Lovin’ the DEI Retreat but Wantin’ More."

This is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Malia Tibido. With me today is Michaela S. True. And today we will be discussing her article. I believe it was loving it, but waiting for wanting something more about the DEI and McDonald's. Yes. So could you tell me more, like just give a... brief rundown of your article? Yeah, absolutely. So I actually, I'll just give you the brief rundown even before what I got into it of what I said in the article. But I came back to campus about a week early before classes started because I had to be back for as an RA, the position that I'm in. I had to be back because students were already here. And so I had several days of nothing

to do. And I thought, well, now's a good time as ever to just kind of write and submit things randomly and see what happens. And so in recent news at that time, McDonald's had just announced, I believe it was January 6th, they're around that start date, back to work for everyone, that they had changes in their DEI policies. And they sent this email to their entire worldwide company and then it was also published on their website. So I was investigating that, reading into it. And it just really fascinated me that all of these companies are backtracked. a lot of their DEI policies and I wanted to see what McDonald's had to say and then reading in their statement I found it rather ironic that they didn't really get to the juicy part of the changes until

basically the last third of the statement most of it was this is how inclusive we are this is what we believe this is what we stand by but they didn't really explain their changes till the very end and they seemed really hidden and so I wrote an article in response to that basically saying this is good, we want these changes, but people need to be more bold and companies need to be explaining specifically why they're making these changes instead of kind of trying to tow the line and hide behind this inclusivity language that is not making it clear that they're trying to do these changes in order to please their customers and also in the hiring process to, that that's what a business is for. It's not about this DEI that has so influential.

infiltrated companies, but it's more about being a business. And so I was basically calling McDonald's to be more bold and standing on that and advertising it and explaining it to their customers. Right, right. So you were talking about how McDonald's has recently, along with a few other companies, changedist policies. But I was wondering if you could touch on what you believe influenced the recent influx of like billionaires and different companies to change slash retract their DEI statements, like even before Trump was officially inaugurated. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's really interesting that you mentioned that because well before Trump was officially inaugurated, a lot of these companies started to backtrack. It really started most clearly this summer in the summer of

24, I can remember tractor supply, John D, or a couple of other of these companies released these statements regarding their DEI policies. And I think that happened for a couple of reasons. And if I'm being completely honest, some of it is still too detailed or too businessy and it goes over my head. But in what I've researched, basically this DEI system has become so infiltrated in their companies that the hiring process is no longer based off of skill or experience and it's based off of meeting a specific quota so that they can report their staff diversity or their staff inclusion and that includes transgenderism, that includes sexuality, not only just race. And so they're trying to meet these specific quotas of numbers in order to report to something

called the HRC, the human rights campaign, which is, it's very complicated. It's essentially this transgender, this platform that supports transgenderism and will rate companies based off of how inclusive they are. And so these companies were trying to please the HRC instead of trying to please their consumers and their customers. So this has been several years in the works. It's not a new thing. It's just become growing and growing and growing. And I think a lot of public figures are becoming more and more wary of it and frustrated with it and saying that's not the job of a business. A business is to sell products to their consumers. And so Robbie Starbuck is someone who I think I mentioned in the article and he is this public figure who is going to businesses

and saying you must be promoting things to your consumers and your customers and your customers don't care about your inclusivity policies. They care about your products and how you're manufacturing them and their prices. And so stop entering politics and stop entering cultural conversations in all of this DEI and just start doing your job, which is your business, whatever that is, whether it's McDonald's or selling products or any of these. And so that backtracked this summer. I think Trump's inauguration has very much spurred a lot of companies to realize not only are my fellow companies backtracking, but also we have an administration who's going to put a firm hand against DEI policies, and so they started coming out more and more, because

McDonald's wasn't the only one. Meta also came out, several other companies, Amazon. They're all making changes, and they're subtle, but it's happening. Okay. What got you interested in writing about DEI in particular? That's a really good question. It's something that actually my dad is very interested in. My dad worked in the business corporate world for over 20 years. And as a conservative Christian man, he saw a lot of things that he disagreed with and was becoming more and more frustrated with it. And so now he's no longer working with that specific business. But his line of work is very much in the business world as a conservative Christian. And so these are conversations which sounds cliche, but they happen around my dinner table all the time of what are these companies doing? What does it say about

our culture, how do we change it. And so he's actually been very helpful in explaining this to me and explaining what the companies are saying and unpacking it for me. So that's really what sparked my interest. He didn't actually tell me about McDonald's. I found that just in my own, you know, consuming of media and on X and seeing all these things. But my dad is definitely the person who's been aware of it far before I was. parked my interest in it. Right. Okay. Again, this is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm Malia Tibido, and I'm with Michaela's Truth talking about her recent article published in the American Informer, talking about DEI. So on the subject of, you know, people involved in the business world

and affecting change. You mentioned was Robert Starbuck, Robbie Starbuck. How do you think that people who also feel strongly about this can get involved and become advocates? That's a really great question. I think it's something that a lot of people assume they can't really partake in because they don't have millions of dollars or they don't have a platform on X and so how do I really become involved? But the whole point of my article and also just this DEI discussion in general is that the companies are supposed to be serving consumers and their customers. And so actually the best way for people to get involved is to voice their opinion to the company. So if you're going to a local target and you're really frustrated with their bathroom policies or you're really frustrated with the insane sales of

transgender clothes and all of these, I mean, it was a lot worse several years ago, all of these promotions of such ideologies, voice your opinion, say it to someone, say, you know, I would really like to bring my daughter here without her seeing that as the first thing that we see when we walk into the store. Or, you know, I really don't think that most of your customers are looking to buy something like that. Or something as simple as I heard a story of a mom who went to a local library and didn't appreciate the book that was out on the shelf saying something like he is she or some sort of title along that line, promoting transgender ideology to young children. And she just said it. She said, I don't think this should be public on the shelf. It's fine if it's on the shelf for someone to go find on their own, but you shouldn't be publicly displaying this for every single person and every single child who can read to walk in and see that. And so I think the common individual just needs to recognize that their voice is powerful because companies are listening and they want to please their customers. And so you as a customer should speak up if you disagree with something.

Yeah. So is this part of the good cultural pressure that you mentioned in your article? Yes. That's exactly you hit it on the head. It's good cultural pressure because the thing about these companies is, again, they're serving consumers and customers who come from all different backgrounds. So I'm not saying that all these companies should all of a sudden start promoting only conservative, only Christian beliefs just because those are my beliefs. But I am saying that we should put this good cultural, this good cultural pressure on these companies to be neutral so that people from both sides of the aisle, if you want to term it that way, can walk into a store and buy what they need to buy without constantly being slammed in the face by political and random cultural ideologies.

What do you think is next for these companies? They've issued these statements and retractions of, I guess, their most radical policies. but what would you say like they should do next? It's a good question. I think the next step, at least from what I can sense, is probably from the Trump administration, his discussion of DEI departments. Because, and I think I mentioned this a little bit in the article,

but it's not just that these companies are hiring based on DEI policies, but they have their own departments. It's kind of like an HR department, but the HR department is still there. and it's its own separate thing. And Trump talked about before he was even elected, getting rid of DEI departments because quite literally they don't do anything. They are very much pointless.

And so I think that is a pressure and a decision that a lot of companies will face is not only do you need to change your hiring policies, but you probably need to change some of these positions because these departments, this internal structure of your company, is not necessary. And that, I don't know how public it will be. I don't know how much it will be seen, but it will be an internal reassessment and an internal reconfiguration of the company. McDonald's went into that, and it was something I addressed in my article because they basically

said they were keeping their diversity team, but they were changing the name. And in my article, I say, well, that's not really enough because the team in and of itself is not necessary. But I think that is what will come again is it's not just a name or a public change. an internal change. Interesting. Yeah, because like, it is certain aspect. You can, you can't control what the companies themselves do if they change these people's, like, positions and don't label them, DEI.

You can't just, like, go after everything they do. So, like, you did mention that they were transferring. DEI staff and to the, was it, global inclusion team. So that can like on paper get rid of these DEI departments. But in practice, how do you think, like, are these people going to, are these companies going to try and save these policies in a different way? or do you think they're going to go back to a more merit-based system? I think it will probably depend on company-to-company and how strong-willed they are.

I think the McDonald's example of changing the team name to global inclusion team is evident of their hesitancy to make a lot of changes. So I think it will be an uphill battle. I think despite these victories, there's still a lot that needs to be done and a lot that needs to be changed. And companies are probably going to be pretty cautious because they're really afraid of backlash from the HRC or backlash from other left-leaning companies

or foundations or even some donors who might hold to these beliefs and disagree with their stances and changes with DEI. So I think it will depend. I honestly think it will be very slow. I don't think it's going to be this drastic swoop, cleanse, purge of all the companies. I think it will inch back slowly. Even the name changed. Like I said, that's not enough.

But that's evidence of a slow change instead of a drastic shift. Yeah. Yeah. That seems more in line with how businesses work. Anyway, this is Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. Well, thank you for joining me, Michaela. This has been very enlightening talk. You can read.

Michaela's article at the American Informer. It's titled Love in the DEI Retreat, but Waiting for More. Again, thank you, Michaela, for joining me. And I've been Malia Tibido. Thanks, Melia.