A conservative Starbucks shareholder was booed for questioning the chain's plan to hire refugees — here's the CEO's response ($SBUX)

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said Wednesday that the company's decision to hire 10,000 refugees was rooted in compassion, not politics, after shareholders booed a conservative critic who questioned the coffee giant's plans.

Justin Danhof, the general counsel for the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank and Starbucks shareholder, took his time at the microphone during the Q&A portion of Starbucks' annual shareholders meeting on Wednesday to ask some pointed questions.

Danhof implied it was partisan and hypocritical of Starbucks to criticize Trump's initial executive order barring refugees and people from seven-majority Muslim countries from entering the US.

"Why were you willing to have Starbucks' reputation take a beating when you spoke out against President Trump's travel ban, when you lacked the courage to speak out against the Obama-Clinton travel ban?" Danhof asked.

Lawyers and former Obama administration officials have noted there are differences in scope and intent between Trump's executive order and Obama's 2011 immigration restrictions.

Starbucks shareholders at the meeting could be heard audibly boo-ing Danhof after he asked his question.

"When I was sitting in the auditorium today, and this young man was talking about his concerns with this population of [refugees]... it was a challenge not to leap from my seat," Matt Zeller, a veteran who co-founded No One Left Behind, an organization working with Starbucks that assists refugees who served as translators for American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, told Business Insider.

"Those of us who actually served with these people, we would tell you, to a person, these people — they are the true veterans," he said.

Danhof cited a Business Insider article from February, which reported that the coffee giant's consumer perception levels fell by two-thirds after Schultz announced plans to hire refugees and openly criticized the president's immigration ban in late January, based on YouGov BrandIndex data. Many criticized Starbucks based on the belief the company was hiring refugees instead of veterans, despite the fact the coffee chain announced plans to hire 10,000 veterans in 2013 — a goal the company announced it had met on Wednesday.

In response to Danhof's question, Schultz said that Starbucks' decisions are based on the company's values of "humanity and compassion," not politics.

"I can unequivocally tell you — and we all know this from the research we have done — is there is zero, absolutely no evidence whatsoever that there is any dilution in the integrity of the Starbucks brand, reputation, or our core business as a result of being compassionate," Schultz said.

Schultz also disputed

Speaking with Business Insider after the meeting, Danhof said as a conservative, he "did not feel comfortable sitting in the shareholders meeting," and that he believed any conservatives working at Starbucks would feel similarly stifled.

"From an investment standpoint, having hostility... to conservatives and conservative leaders — they're diminishing half of their potential customer base," he said.

Meanwhile, Schultz has maintained that Starbucks is not anti-Trump, despite his own support for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

"I don't think on any level that Starbucks or the brand is at odds with Trump or his supporters," Schultz said on CNBC in December. "One of the values we feel very strongly as a company is to demonstrate a level of social impact to the community that we serve."

This article has been updated with additional context.

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A conservative Starbucks shareholder was booed for questioning the chain's plan to hire refugees — here's the CEO's response ($SBUX)

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