The Heritage Foundation: Starbucks, Drop the SPLC's Lies

Thursday, May 14, 2026

At Starbucks' annual meeting, the company faced a shareholder proposal from the Heritage Foundation via its Free Enterprise Initiative over its reliance on the Southern Poverty Law Center in vetting charities. Stefan Padfield presented for Heritage, urging the company to drop this biased, discredited data source as part of its responsibility to fiduciary duty and political neutrality.

"Given that relying on the SPLC’s Hate List is a business decision that must be fully informed in order to satisfy applicable fiduciary duties, shareholders can seemingly only conclude that Starbucks is aware of how biased the Hate List is, and either simply doesn’t care or actually supports that bias."

Learn more about Heritage's Free Enterprise Initiative here.

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