While the populist consensus is that MAGA is killing off diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in corporate America, that may not always be the case in some of the nation’s biggest companies.
According to one report, shareholders of some leading companies, including Costco, Apple, Levi’s, John Deere, Goldman Sachs, and others, have voted against proposals targeting DEI programs.
Those proposals included asking companies to ditch their DEI policies and examine the legal risks of pursuing them. Two conservative think tanks, the National Center for Public Policy Research and the National Legal and Policy Center, are reportedly behind most of the DEI-killing measures.
In January, Breitbart News noted that Costco had dug in its heels after a shareholder proposal urged the “wholesale club operator to conduct an evaluation of any business risk posed by its” DEI practices, according to AP.
“‘But Costco’s board of directors voted unanimously to ask shareholders to reject the motion,’ an AP report stated, noting their message to shareholders claimed that having a diverse workforce and suppliers resulted in greater customer satisfaction.”
DEI in the workplace results in employee training, resource networks, and recruiting practices that advance representation of different races, genders, and classes, people with disabilities, veterans, and other groups.
But opponents like Elon Musk, the Tesla and X CEO, and President Donald Trump himself, say DEI is unfair to qualified workers and represents “reverse racism.”
Dozens of companies, including Target and Meta, have dialed back or eliminated their diversity programs in recent months under pressure from the Trump administration.
Opponents sometimes cite that DEI violates the spirit of a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that stated racial preferences in college admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. But as Breitbart reported at the time, that decision only applies to state governments and institutions.
Shareholder votes are where DEI opponents are losing, reported CNN Business.
The rejections of anti-DEI proposals “reveal that the investor community doesn’t think that having a tough stance on DEI makes financial sense,” Matteo Gatti, a professor of law at Rutgers University who studies corporate governance, told the network. “Investors are saying they don’t want ideological shareholders to drive business.”
That “community,” however, appears to be dominated by Wall Street’s big players.
“Large institutional investors” apparently call the shots at many multinational corporations. Mega investors “such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street are the top shareholders of most companies.
“They typically oppose outside shareholder resolutions,” the network reported, “siding with company management in around 90% of the votes.”
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