Posted on 11/18/2024 6:12:36 AM PST by george76
Dozens of investment advisors warned America’s biggest corporations Friday that their diversity programs will be a liability under the incoming Trump administration.
Americans “overwhelmingly rejected the ideological takeover of political and civic life by narrow-minded identity politics” in the Nov. 5 election, a coalition of 38 financial officers wrote in letters warning companies that the new administration will “hasten the demise of DEI.”
“You stand at an important crossroads,” the letter states. “Either you can heed the voice of the American people—your shareholders, customers, and employees—or you can bow to fringe activists who demand that you double down on a failing ideology.”
Companies scored on the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Viewpoint Diversity index, along with Fortune 1000 companies not scored, received letters from the investor advisor coalition.
ADF’s 2024 Viewpoint Diversity index revealed that 91 percent of companies scored use critical race theory in their training materials for employees. The index measured the 85 biggest technology and finance companies on their respect for free speech and religious freedom.
Jeremy Tedesco, senior vice president of corporate engagement for Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Daily Caller News Foundation it’s clear that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is already “on its way out.”
“What the Trump administration does could really speed up that process, which will ultimately be good for those corporations, for their workforce, for the broader society, because DEI is a toxic ideology that harms everybody it comes into contact with,” he said.
Some companies have already changed DEI policies as a result of pressure from consumers and shareholders, ending their participation in the left-wing Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and abandoning diversity initiatives, Tedesco noted. Under pressure from conservative activist Robby Starbuck, companies like Lowe’s and Tractor Supply Co backtracked on DEI policies, including sponsoring LGBTQ pride parades.
Companies began rolling back their DEI programs after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in higher education in 2023 and conservatives increased their focus on specifically targeting corporations with legal challenges.
“While we urge you to distance yourself from DEI and highly divisive groups like the Human Rights Campaign—which bullies companies into adopting radical, wrong-headed, and reputationally disastrous policies—we also want to caution you against retracting your goal of protecting the civil liberties and dignity of all employees,” the letter continues. “As fiduciaries of your companies, we manage over $16 billion in assets, and we represent working Americans who depend on us to safeguard their financial future, retirement planning, and more. You owe these investors transparency and, when necessary, proactive changes that are in their best financial interests to serve and foster a healthy civil society.”
Inspire Investing director of corporate engagement Tim Schwarzenberger, whose company signed onto the letters, said shareholders “expect those in the c-suite to deliver positive financial results that meet customer demand and contribute to a healthy, civil society.”
“That’s not too much to ask,” Schwarzenberger said in a statement to the DCNF. “For too long, however, corporate leaders have been bullied into taking increasingly extreme positions on hot-button cultural issues and implementing harmful DEI policies that divide up the workforce and society itself.”
Dr. OJ Oleka, Chief Executive Officer of the State Financial Officers Foundation, said public employees “like teachers, law enforcement officers, and fire fighters rely on state financial officers to make and recommend sound fiduciary decisions to secure their financial future.”
“I know this firsthand, as my mother is the beneficiary of my late father’s public pension from his career as a public university professor,” he said in a statement. “My mother deserves the promise of my late father’s pension, and so does everyone else who worked hard to earn one. The DEI regime does not deliver on that promise.”
Everything is political with some people. The issue with DEI is that it does not add to the bottom line! Investors are concerned with results! Not political theater in business.
Hurts the bottom line as customers and employees can go elsewhere
I swear DEI is a Chinese war game...”let’s see if America will do THIS!”
No competent person supports DEI.
Look at what Biden did to the Chip Act! One plant per company after reading the fine print about social programs required which made the program not practical. The vaunted Chip Act and all the new high technology jobs. 🧐
So, then: The financial advisers are still beholden to the ideology AND refuse to cite it as "failed."
Interesting. The presumptive conclusion is that the "financial advisers" were at least in part responsible for the ideology's spread among the corporations.
We deserve to know exactly who they are.
I want names.
In the immortal words of Laura Ingraham in her book from a number of years ago: Shut up and sing. In other words, stay in your lane, businesses. Your job is to sell us goods and services, not to make us better people
Companies who invest in talent acquisition based on identity instead of competence disadvantage the enterprise overall. Investing in DEI companies is a bad bet.
redstate.com excerpt-——The Pentagon is in “absolute disarray” with “generals scrambling” to hide evidence of DEI, due to Trump’s plans to fire “woke” senior military leaders who prioritized DEI over combat readiness, and American families’ safety and security, according to sources.
One source compared it to a hornet’s nest being kicked over and that “DEI pages are starting to disappear off the main websites. They’re being archived as we speak. They are full-bore focused on cleaning up anything DEI-related,” the source said.
Another source said people are trying to find out if they are on the list to be cut. “They are in panic mode,” the source said.
You can find names at the link below. I doubt if these financial advisers ever bought into DEI and CRT. In the letter that they signed, they are advising companies to distance themselves from DEI and highly divisive groups like the Human Rights Campaign, and to take proactive steps to protect free speech and religious freedom. The group has also developed the VDS Business Index, which grades corporations each year on how well they respect freedom in the marketplace, workforce, and public square. Unfortunately, most companies have low scores.
I swear Covid is a Chinese war game...” let’s see if America will do THIS!”
Get a clue “advisors”... DEI has always been a liability, as that was always its intention. Idiots.
As is typical, liberals take something that has value and bastardizes it to fit their agenda, and while so doing, removed the value from said initiative. Diversity of opinion and perspective is very valuable for any organization. Believing that diversity comes from skin color is their error. It comes from socioeconomic and geographic differences. So culture not race. When done correctly, diversity of thought is a huge benefit, but is is all predicated on having the most talented in the room 1st.
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