Starbucks Vindicated: Court Strikes Down Missouri’s Targeted Attempt To Criminalize Corporate Inclusion

Starbucks seems to continuous stand strong in their commitment to DEI, knocking out lawsuit after lawsuit amid its policies adopted following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, ⁠a Black man, by a Minneapolis police officer.

Starbucks emerged victorious after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from Missouri alleging that the popular coffee brand of using its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) commitment to discriminate based on race, gender, and sexual orientation, Yahoo Finance reports.

U.S. District Judge John Ross of St. Louis excused the case after stating the state failed to ‌ provide any evidence that Starbucks discriminated against “even a single Missouri resident” who worked for the company or applied for a job. Favoring the Trump administration’s anti-DEI ideologies, Missouri sought to force Starbucks to end alleged discrimination based on ⁠race, gender, and national origin.

The suit was filed by former Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey, who later left to join the Trump administration as FBI co-deputy director. The state accused the coffee conglomerate of correlating executive pay to ⁠the company’s achievement of racial and ‌gender-based hiring quotas. Additionally, Missouri claimed Starbucks singled out certain groups for additional training and job advancement.

Starbucks was also accused of employing a quota system to ensure its board of directors had some diversity. Missouri wanted Starbucks to rehire employees, rescind disciplinary actions against employees allegedly affected by discrimination, and pay ‌damages.

Even before President Donald Trump set the tone for DEI initiatives to shut down on the federal level, schools, and the private sector, Bailey had his eyes on terminating diversity for good, targeting “woke” ideologies.

According to the Missouri Independent, the former attorney general criticized the Business Roundtable, a nationwide association of America’s CEOs working to push a thriving economy, for allegedly having “racist DEI initiatives.”

Proclaiming he would fight “woke political trends and blatant racial discrimination,” he threatened that policies “risk exposing your organizations to substantial liability.”

He once sued tech giant IBM, long known for being a model of inclusivity with a diversity council started in the 1990s, over claims that the company did the most to recruit non-white and female hires, setting another tone adopted by the EEOC, pressuring white employees to come forward with claims of discrimination.

However, Starbucks seems to continue to stand strong in its commitment to DEI, knocking out lawsuit after lawsuit amid its policies adopted following the 2020 murder of George Floyd, ⁠a Black man, by a Minneapolis police officer.

A federal judge in Washington, Starbucks’ home base, dismissed a shareholder ‍lawsuit in 2023 that challenged its diversity ⁠policies. The judge argued that the case raised public policy questions for lawmakers and companies — not for the court.