Over the past few months, we’ve watched in amazement as major corporations like Disney, Anheuser-Busch, and Target have hopped on the LGBTQ train and alienated their traditional client bases as a result. Regardless of the often swift and brutal backlash they know will follow, others – think The North Face, Nike, and Kohl’s – are always waiting in the wings to become the next sacrificial lamb.
It turns out there’s a reason for this counterintuitive behavior which goes far beyond virtue signaling: Companies are trying to raise their Corporate Equality Index. The more woke issues a company supports, the higher their score.
A CEI is essentially a “woke” credit score that is determined by the Human Rights Campaign, a 501(c)(4) organization that describes itself as “the largest LGBTQ political lobbying organization within the United States.” No one will be surprised to hear that George Soros’s Open Society Foundations is HRC’s largest donor. Others include the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the labor unions for the National Education Association and the United Food and Commercial Workers, according to Influence Watch.
Influence Watch reports HRC’s public charity arm, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, plays an influential role in Democratic Party politics by pressuring companies to comply.
A company’s CEI is derived from its performance in five areas:
- Workforce Protections (5 points possible)
- Inclusive Benefits (50 points possible)
- Supporting an Inclusive Culture (25 points possible)
- Corporate Social Responsibility (20 points possible)
- Responsible Citizenship (-25)
Yes, you read that right. “A large-scale official or public anti-LGBTQ blemish” on a company’s record will result in the loss of 25 points. HRC explains that “scores on this criterion are based on information that has come to HRC’s attention.”
For example, Fox News, which for three years had scored 100%, lost its perfect rating in April 2022 after several hosts defended Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R-FL) “Parental Rights in Education” law, better known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
HRCF’s 2022 report shows that 842 corporations achieved CEIs of 100% which earned them the apparently coveted distinction of being one of the “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality.”
An explainer about the index published by the New York Post last month notes that CEI is “a lesser-known part of the burgeoning ESG [Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance] ‘ethical investing’ movement increasingly pushed by the country’s top three investment firms,” BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street Bank. “ESG funds invest in companies that oppose fossil fuels, push for unionization, and stress racial and gender equity over merit in hiring and board selection.”
The Post reports that “HRC sends representatives to corporations every year telling them what kind of stuff they have to make visible at the company. They give them a list of demands and if they don’t follow through there’s a threat that you won’t keep your CEI score.”
James Lindsay, editor of website New Discourses, told the Post: “HRC administers the CEI ranking ‘like an extortion racket, like the Mafia.’”
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, said, “The big fund managers like BlackRock all embrace this ESG orthodoxy in how they apply pressure to top corporate management teams and boards and they determine, in many cases, executive compensation and bonuses and who gets re-elected or re-appointed to boards. They can make it very difficult for you if you don’t abide by their agendas.”
In a 2018 letter to CEOs from BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, whom Fortune Magazine has dubbed the “face of ESG,” he emphasizes a “new model of governance” in harmony with ESG values.
Fink wrote: “Society is demanding that companies, both public and private, serve a social purpose. To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society. … [I]f a company doesn’t engage with the community and have a sense of purpose, it will ultimately lose the license to operate from key stakeholders.”
Fink is mistaken. Society is not demanding that companies serve a social purpose. ESG is coming to us from the global elites who wield it as a weapon and a control mechanism they can use to consolidate power over the masses.
The mission of activist group “Our Money, Our Values” is to educate the public about the threats posed by ESG. OMOV quotes Derek Kreifels, the co-founder and CEO of State Financial Officers Foundation on its front page: “ESG is a highly subjective political score infiltrating all walks of life, forcing progressive policies on everyday Americans, resulting in higher prices at the pump and at the store.”
Asked for a comment by the Post, Kreifels said, “The problem with measures like CEI, and its big brother ESG, is that it introduces an incentive structure outside of the bounds of business, often in ways contradictory to fiduciary duty.”
It certainly is. Corporations exist to maximize shareholder value, not to serve social purposes. The interests of shareholders of Anheuser-Busch, Disney, Target and other companies whose executives have prioritized ESG over profits – and common sense – are clearly not being served. Legal action must be taken to eradicate this attack on shareholder rights and American values.
New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, a Republican, said last week that GOP candidates should stop focusing on the culture wars and place more emphasis on issues like inflation. Although inflation is indeed a major problem that deserves attention, the culture wars are strangling us and turning America into a country we no longer recognize. We can stop focusing on them at our peril.
A previous version of this article appeared in The Washington Examiner.
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Sununu, like his father, is a globalist RINO. Of course, he supports ESG and wants us to blindly look the other way.
If this is so important to the companies, that involve themselves in this, then tee yourselves up, and we will shank you into the fringes of darkness. May your profits fall, to the bottom.
This goes especially for Fox Corp.
They will all become so surprised knowing how little they are needed. Like Target, and all the rest who have ventured down this primrose lane of stupidity.
I guess if we lived in a world in which Congress gave s%%$ about the American people Black Rock, State Street, and Vanguard should be broken apart under anti-trust rules. Those three venture capital firms have WAY too much power and should be destroyed.
I’d think that the best way to educate the public, and a company’s management, is to sue them for failing in their fiduciary responsibility to maximize profits.
When companies start losing multi-billion dollar court cases and have to start paying out money for their obsession with DIE then I’d think that everybody, managements and stockholders, will get an education they will likely not forget.