 When the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization this summer, overturning Roe v. Wade, many large companies weighed in to signal their opposition to the Court’s determination that states have a strong interest in protecting the life of the unborn. Companies including Disney, Amazon, JP Morgan Chase, Starbucks, and Google announced that they will now pay for employees who live in pro-life states to travel elsewhere to get an abortion. 

But if these powerful companies claim to be “pro woman,” why aren’t they willing to dedicate the same resources to support mothers who choose to go through with their pregnancies, and where necessary, pursue adoption as an alternative to abortion? 

That’s a question asked recently at National Review by Denise Harle, Senior Counsel and Director of the Center for Life at Alliance Defending Freedom. Harle, whose team worked alongside the state of Mississippi to pass and defend the 15-week abortion prohibition upheld by the Supreme Court in Dobbs, argues that companies offering to cover abortion travel costs are not only making an ethical error, but a business mistake as well.

“Businesses that tout one-time abortion-travel payments as the best solution to an unexpected pregnancy may have their own bottom lines in mind, but they’re doing their employees and themselves a disservice,” Harle writes. “Though helping women flourish as professionals and mothers may seem more expensive in the short term, in the long term, it is crucial to fostering the kind of happy, healthy work culture on which any organization thrives.”

Throughout her piece, Harle urges companies—including non-profits—to consider the whole picture. That includes mental-health outcomes, employee retention, and the ability of an increasing number of companies to allow for flexible work arrangements that allow women to stay productive in the workplace while prioritizing their role as mothers.

Harle’s challenge to Corporate America includes a reference to an earlier piece by businessman and entrepreneur Peter Rex. Writing in Newsweek, Rex—who serves on the advisory council for Viewpoint Diversity Score—calls attention to the short-term thinking of companies pledging to fund employees’ abortions. 

Like Harle, Rex calls on his fellow CEOs to commit their resources to female employees who choose life for their children—including by placing them into adoptive homes.

“These businesses are ignoring the possibility that many employees may simply need a little more help to carry their baby to term. Instead of blindly paying people to end an unborn child's life, companies should consider paying them to welcome that life into the world.”

As reported at Forbes.com, less than 40 percent of companies surveyed by the Society for Human Resource Management offer paid leave for adoptions, with far fewer covering the travel costs that can particularly accumulate for out-of-state or international adoptions. That means many employees who choose to adopt children rather than abort them are disincentivized to do so by their own companies.  

Abortion is one of the most contentious issues in American society. Businesses have an ethical responsibility to respect customers, employees, and other stakeholders who hold a wide diversity of social viewpoints and perspectives. 

Instead of sending the de-humanizing, demeaning message to their female employees that they must choose between motherhood and success in the workplace, companies should do everything they can to help employees welcome new life into the world. 

Countering Corporate America's De-Humanizing Message to Expectant Mothers

These days, it isn’t difficult to find a critic of so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” employee training programs, which are too often rife with fundamentally divisive concepts like Critical Race Theory. What is in short supply, however, are solid alternatives.

That’s what makes resources like Dr. Carol Swain’s Real Unity Training Solutions so valuable. As Alliance Defending Freedom Director of Strategic Campaigns and Initiatives Jay Hobbs writes at The Federalist, the long-time academic’s latest project is designed as a positive antidote to a corrosive approach that has made its way into virtually every institution in American life.

“The current diversity training makes people feel miserable. Everyone’s miserable at the end of the training. No one’s better off,” Swain says. “Instead, we can actually present people with a historical background of discrimination and the law, and then present them with positive principles and training that bring people together and educate them.”

Crafted for use in corporations, as well as churches and other groups, Swain’s material was recently adopted by the Tennessee Board of Education, marking a major step forward for the upstart venture. 

Along with focusing on what unites co-workers and fellow members of organizations rather than what divides them, Swain’s framework educates leaders on their legal duties under constitutional and civil rights laws.

As Hobbs points out, that approach is long overdue in Corporate America:

Far from the outlier in the DEI field, that incident fits within a much larger trend of companies trafficking in divisive concepts in their workforces. At least 78 percent of the 50 Fortune 1000 companies evaluated on the Viewpoint Diversity Score 2022 Business Index utilize employee training that undermines trust, respect, and openness in the workplace. One of those companies, Bank of America, has launched a reeducation program, telling employees they needed to be “woke” and white employees to “decolonize your mind.”

On its website, Bank of America declares that, “Now more than ever, we need to be comfortable with uncomfortable conversations and deepen our understanding through self-education of people’s differences.” These “uncomfortable” discussions include telling all white employees that their lives are based on “white-skin privileges.”

You can also access Dr. Swain’s training materials here.

Carol Swain’s Plan to Eclipse “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” with Real Unity

Typically, when we hear about current censorship issues, we think of instances of blackballing on social media, such as Twitter banning public figures from the platform or Facebook preventing users from sharing certain points of view. 

But today’s increasing censorship problem encompasses so much more than that, and likely runs deeper than you know. Tech giants are controlling what you say and the news you see, but now even major financial institutions are under pressure to prevent companies and even individuals from accessing banking services based on the customer’s viewpoint. 

In a new Freedom Matters video about the threat of corporate censorship, Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel and Senior Vice President of Corporate Engagement Jeremy Tedesco uses JPMorgan Chase Bank as an example. Last fall, the bank denied payment processing services to the conservative group Defense of Liberty, citing a vague terms of use policy.

“Although JP Morgan apologized and reversed course, we shouldn’t be duped,” says Tedesco. “We’ve seen this same tactic from social media companies: Apologize for censorship until you think you can get away with it, then stop apologizing.” 

America’s biggest companies are violating free speech and trying to control what you say. That’s why the Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index was created: to help companies get back on the right track and help you assess how companies are undermining free speech and religious freedom. Household company names such as Amazon, GoDaddy, and Chase Bank are providing essential services to millions of Americans every day—and in many cases, leveraging their power and resources to push forward an ideological agenda. 

Unfortunately, Fortune 1000 companies have caved to the demands of activists on the left who want to use these companies to bypass federal and local governments in enforcing their social and political agenda. Our 2022 Business Index results are concerning: of the 50 benchmarked Fortune 1000 companies, computer software companies scored an average of 6%; internet and retailing averaged 8%; companies in financial and data services industry came in at 11%.  

In a follow up conversation on corporate cancel culture, Tedesco spoke about the problem further, explaining just how entrenched Fortune 1000 companies are in practices that threaten free speech and religious freedom. 

 “The idea behind the Index is to first shed light on the problem,” he said, “but then to ultimately engage with these companies, give them model policies and practices, and to urge them to make changes that ultimately will make them institutions that protect and preserve these essential freedoms rather than be institutions that tear them down—which is where they’re headed right now.” 

Learn more about how you can use the Business Index to engage with these companies and advocate for freedom in Corporate America. 

Freedom Matters: Tedesco on Corporate Censorship, Debanking

Louisiana State Treasurer John Schroder made major news this week, announcing his state’s full withdrawal from BlackRock-managed funds. Louisiana becomes the fourth state—following Utah, Arkansas, and Texas—to redirect state investments away from the giant’s $8 trillion portfolio. 

Although the impending divestment of Louisiana’s $794 million by the end of 2022 won’t make an immediate dent in BlackRock’s bottom line, Schroder’s action plants an important flag in the growing (and bipartisan) backlash against investing strategies that prioritize political aims over fiduciary responsibility.

In a scathing letter to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, Schroder stated his case for why he is no longer willing to risk Louisiana’s future. 

“This divestment is necessary to protect Louisiana from actions and policies that would actively seek to hamstring our fossil fuel sector,” Schroder wrote. “In my opinion, your support of ESG investing is inconsistent with the best economic interests and values of Louisiana. I cannot support an institution that would deny our state the benefit of one of its most robust assets. Simply put, we cannot be party to the crippling of our own economy.”

Schroder, whose state is one of the nation’s top oil and natural gas producers, highlighted that fact throughout the letter, contrasting the importance of Louisiana’s fossil fuel industries with BlackRock’s public goal of replacing oil and natural gas with green energy. 

Not only do those long-term goals conflict, jeopardizing Louisiana’s future, BlackRock’s strategy is also resulting in major financial losses—including a $1.7 trillion loss in a six-month period of time that prompted a July 2022 Bloomberg article titled, “BlackRock Is Breaking the Wrong Kind of Records.”

Along with citing the legal concerns involved in sacrificing state employees’ long-term financial returns for an ideological agenda, Schroder also called out BlackRock for making an end-run around the political process to impose large-scale cultural changes.

“I’m convinced that ESG investing is more than bad business; it’s a threat to our founding principles: democracy, economic freedom, and individual liberty,” Schroder wrote. “It threatens our democracy, bypasses the ballot box and allows large investment firms to push political agendas. It threatens our economic freedom because these firms use their massive shareholdings to compel CEOs to put political motivations above a company’s profits and investors’ returns. 

“Finally, it threatens our personal liberty because these firms are using our money to push their agendas contrary to the best interests of the people whose money they are using! There is a difference between offering an ESG investment option for those investors so inclined, and using other peoples’ non-ESG investments to promote ESG shareholder initiatives.”

Along with pushback at the state level, ESG investing is encountering opposition from advocacy groups, shareholders, and center-left media outlets. 

In August, Viewpoint Diversity Score (VDS) advisory council member and Inspire Investing CEO Robert Netzly announced his firm was abandoning its years-long strategy to salvage the terminology under its “faith-based ESG” label. Fellow VDS advisory council member Jerry Bowyer, chief economist of Vident Financial and the editor of Townhall Finance recently observed the decline of ESG’s once-unquestioned reputation among cultural elites, noting that even Tesla executives and shareholders are now rejecting the approach.

Meanwhile the Heritage Foundation is also pushing back with its newly launched “ESG Hurts” campaign, which “provides background information on the dangers of ESG through written material, graphics, and a commercial,” along with “model state legislation for state lawmakers looking to protect state pensions, investments, and contracts.”

And it’s not just conservatives who are pushing back on ESG. Earlier this summer, The Economist ran a lengthy piece concluding that, “the term ESG should be scrapped” in favor of better-defined metrics that don’t make the mistake of “lump[ing] together a dizzying array of objectives.”

Especially in light of the latest stand from Schroder and Louisiana, it will be interesting to see which state or major player in the investing world is next to oppose ESG. What’s clear enough is they won’t be the last.

Louisiana’s BlackRock Divestment Sends Warning Shot to ESG Investing

Adobe

Airbnb, Inc.

Akamai Technologies

Alphabet

Amazon.com

Apple

Bank of America

Bank of New York

Block, Inc.

BOK Financial

Bread Financial

Capital One Financial

Citigroup

Citizens Financial Group

Comerica

Discover Financial Services

eBay

Euronet Worldwide

Fidelity National Information Services

Fifth Third Bancorp

First Horizon National

First Republic Bank

Fiserv

Global Payments

GoDaddy

Goldman Sachs Group

Huntington Bancshares

JPMorgan Chase

KeyCorp

Mastercard

Microsoft

Morgan Stanley

M&T Bank

Oracle

Paychex

PayPal Holdings

PNC Financial Services Group

Rackspace

Regions Financial

Snap, Inc

State Street

SVB Financial Group

Truist Financial

Twitter

US Bancorp

Visa

Wells Fargo

Western Union

Zions Bancorp.

We score viewpoint diversity in corporate product and service offerings, workplaces, and in the public square.

We conduct polls measuring how corporate viewpoint diversity, or its absence, impacts employee and customer attitudes.

We equip leaders to advocate for viewpoint diversity within their companies.

We equip companies to take concrete steps toward respecting viewpoint diversity in their business practices, workforces, and public affairs. 
Here’s how:

Our mission is to educate, equip, and galvanize businesses to respect the diverse views of their employees, customers, shareholders, and other stakeholders. 

We believe that businesses that respect people who hold diverse viewpoints are better equipped to serve a broader customer base, promote innovation and responsible governance, and recruit and retain quality talent. They also enrich and strengthen society by fostering a culture that respects free speech, religious tolerance, and open discourse.

See whether companies respect the diverse viewpoints of their customers, employees, and other stakeholders.

The Business Index evaluates corporate policies, practices, and activities to determine whether companies respect their stakeholders’ freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief as a standard part of doing business. 

Each company is scored based on its policies, practices, and activities in three areas:

Workplace: Human resources and employee giving.

Public Square: Political engagement and charitable giving.  

Data pertaining to each of these three categories is analyzed consistent with our scoring methodology (available below). Data is acquired through voluntary corporate disclosures, and open-source research, using publicly available information. 

We select companies for inclusion in the Business Index based on industry, number of employees, revenue, and location. We generally focus on Fortune 1000 companies that are active in tech, communications, banking, and financial services, though companies in other sectors may request to participate. 

While viewpoint diversity matters for any business, this initiative places particular focus on enterprises that provide essential services such as banking, payment processing, and cloud services, or that serve as mediums of third-party expression in the digital space.

To be eligible for participation, a company must be headquartered in the United States, employ at least 500 full-time staff members in the U.S., and/or have annual revenues of one billion dollars or more. 

Subsidiary companies, government entities, or non-profit organizations are not eligible to participate. 

Limited exceptions to these criteria may be made at the sole discretion of Alliance Defending Freedom and Inspire Insight. 

Please contact us if you would like to request information about how your company can participate in the Business Index or improve its current score. 

2022-Business-Index.pdf

2022-Business-Index-Methodology.pdf

2022 Viewpoint Diversity Index Data - July 2022.xlsx

About the Index

This polling project examines how a company’s respect, or lack thereof, for the diverse views of employees and customers affects corporate talent recruitment and retention, workforce culture, and brand trust. 

2022 View Full Report

Customers, employees, and business leaders value a culture of respect for people who hold diverse religious and social viewpoints. 

But how much? 

Our polling narrows the gap between theory and reality.

Countering Corporate America's De-Humanizing Message to Expectant Mothers

Carol Swain’s Plan to Eclipse “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” with Real Unity

Freedom Matters: Tedesco on Corporate Censorship, Debanking

Louisiana’s BlackRock Divestment Sends Warning Shot to ESG Investing

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