Starbucks
Risk Level:
Summary:
Starbucks has fired employees due to religious beliefs and does not have viewpoint protections for employees. Starbucks discriminates against religious nonprofits and uses the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to vet charities, but it funds the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and Planned Parenthood. The company has used its corporate position to advocate for many progressive, ideological causes and policies. It has pledged to vet vendors for their LGBTQ policies as well. For these reasons, Starbucks receives a "High Risk" rating.
Has denied service to customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.
Starbucks received a score of 100 on the Corporate Equality Index from the HRC. Among other requirements, this means Starbucks has pledged to vet vendors based on LGBTQ policies (1). In 2020, a lawsuit was filed by a New York woman who alleges she was fired for refusing to wear an LGBTQ Pride logo on her uniform (2).
Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.
Starbucks will not match employees’ donations to “religious organizations benefiting only those with like beliefs” (1). Starbucks also uses the SPLC Hate List to determine eligible organizations for its gift-matching program (2). Other programs do not have public restrictions on donations to religious organizations (3).
Employment policies fail to protect against discrimination based on political affiliation/views and/or religion.
Starbucks does not protect its employees from viewpoint discrimination (1).
Uses corporate reputation to support ideological causes and/or organizations hostile to freedom of expression.
Starbucks reversed its company policy due to activist pressure, thereby allowing employees to wear Black Lives Matter pins on their uniforms after initially not allowing employees to do so, not wanting to “amplify divisiveness” (1). Starbucks has also signed open letters supporting the Equality Act and supporting revisions to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in the wake of state election security laws (2)(3). In 2015, the company encouraged its 12,000 baristas to strike up conversations with customers about racism (4)(5). Its outspoken CEO, Howard Schultz, also denounced the 2015 NC bathroom bill requiring citizens to use the restroom of their biological gender (6). The company pushed for bathrooms to correspond with gender identity (7)(8). In 2018, Starbucks closed over 8,000 locations to give over 175,000 employees implicit bias training regarding race and gender (9).
Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.
Uses corporate political contributions for ideological, non-business purposes.
Starbucks does not have a PAC.
All links were last accessed and all information was updated on:
December 30, 2022
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