After learning AT&T was demanding DEI-related commitments from its suppliers and vendors, the National Center for Public Policy Research was prepared to confront the corporation’s top bosses at a shareholders’ meeting with a proposal named “Report on Respecting Vendor Civil Liberties.”
That proposal, and the looming confrontation it would create, led by the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project, got the attention of AT&T executives. Both sides discussed the proposal in a conference call.
"They had already toned down their language in terms of their expectations with suppliers," Stefan Padfield, FEP executive director, tells AFN.
In particular, AT&T had already backtracked from “expecting” its supplies to comply with DEI commitments. The corporation softened that demand by “encouraging” them to do so.
AT&T also agreed to disclose, as part of its Principles of Conduct for Suppliers, the state and federal regulations driving AT&T to push DEI commitments on its suppliers.
On the "diversity and inclusion" section of its website, AT&T appears obsessed with categorizing its workers and management by race, sex, sexual orientation, and even physical disabilities (5.1%).
AT&T also brags it was ranked number one in 2023 for "Supplier Diversity" by a group called Fair360, formerly DiversityInc.
Despite the corporation's internal obsession with DEI, its two changes for suppliers were enough for National Center and the Free Enterprise Project to declare a win and drop the shareholder’s proposal.
"We commend AT&T for moving in the right direction when it comes to respecting vendor civil liberties," says Padfield.
Back in May, now eight months ago, the Free Enterprise Project first confronted AT&T at a shareholders’ meeting where it presented Proposal 6. That document direct challenged the company to respect the political views and religious beliefs of its 160,000-plus employees.
The basis for that demand was AT&T’s poor showing on the Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index, maintained by Alliance Defending Freedom. AT&T scored a lowly 10% on the Index after ADF accused it of reserving the right to deny service to customers if their views conflict with AT&T executives.
The response from AT&T was the allegations “misrepresent” the corporation’s “commitment to equality and anti-discrimination,” and it recommended stockholders vote against Proposal 6.
Now, eight months later, AT&T is backtracking from making such demands for its own suppliers.
According to Padfield, he can’t say for sure if the May proposal helped AT&T executives pay attention to the second, new shareholders’ proposal and to the problems of DEI ideology.
“But getting management to think about the issues we are raising is a major part of what we do,” he says, “and we know that corporations often take years to fully resolve these types of issues.”
In fact, Padfield recalls a recent conversation with a corporate executive who dismissed the DEI backtracking by major corporations, such as Walmart, Lowe's and McDonald's. He described it as a “blip on the screen” that will eventually swing back in the other direction.
When the executive was told companies are losing customers and profits for pushing DEI policies, “he just laughed that off as being misinformation,” Padfield recalls.
The lesson from that conversation, Padfield tells AFN, is a lot of people with that mindset are “embedded” in these corporate offices despite numerous examples their assumptions are wrong.
"So, yes, we have a very, very long fight ahead of us," he predicts.
