Working with the attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom, more than 60 Wall Street leaders signed their names to an ADF letter mailed to Fortune 1000 corporations.
Citing the outcome of Nov. 5 election, a shift in public opinion, and recent action at John Deere and other companies, the investors and financial planners have a pointed message for the letter’s recipients: The times they are a-changin’.
“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.”
ADF legal counsel Michael Ross says DEI, or diversity, equity, and inclusion, is a “false bill of promises” that corporations embraced only to harm and divide their own employees.
“Instead of actually doing the things that it purports to do,” Ross tells AFN, “it divides people based on differences and skin colors, sex, or religious status."
The letter also makes reference to ADF’s own corporate grading scale, known as the Viewpoint Diversity Score, which measures a corporation’s commitment to free speech and religious views based on company policy. In the 2024 survey, which looked at 85 companies, ADF found 91% of them include DEI-related concepts in their employee training materials.
That high score means most corporations have resisted any change this year even after DEI practices were scrapped at John Deere, Tractor Supply Company, Jack Daniels, Harley Davidson, Ford, and Toyota. All of those corporations are cited in the letter.
In that latest survey, ADF found the very worst (from lowest score) are X, Airbnb, eBay, Pinterest, Lyft, and Apple.
The purpose of the Viewpoint Diversity Score, Ross says, is to gauge if our country’s most powerful corporations support the “fundamental freedoms” the nation was founded on.
“And fundamental freedoms that benefit everyone,” he says, “like free speech, religious liberty, and parental rights.”
