Tennessee-based Cracker Barrel Old Country Store jumped up 40 points from last year on the recently-released Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index.
This year, the restaurant chain scored 55 points, up from a low score of 15 points in the 2009 report. Cracker Barrel was one of 12 companies in the country to increase its score by at least 30 points this year. Here’s a quote from the HRC report:
Cracker Barrel Old Country Store Inc., once in the news for delivering pink slips justified by “The employee is gay,” has implemented a non-discrimination policy and diversity training that includes sexual orientation and has even gone as far as to provide a cash grant to the Tennessee Equality Project.
“At Cracker Barrel, we value what everybody brings to our restaurant,” said Cracker Barrel spokesperson Julie Davis. “We welcome everyone onto our porch and onto our staff.”
Davis said this is the first year Cracker Barrel has completed the Corporate Equality Index survey. She said the company felt like it was time “to tell our story.”
TEP’s president H.G. Stovall, a former employee of Cracker Barrel had this to say: “The leadership shown by Cracker Barrel in standing up for the LGBT community should not go unnoticed. Many among us were aware of a very different history for the company, one that is now quickly becoming ancient history.”
