CNBC appeared to be the first news outlet to notice corporate participation in the “Corporate Equality Index” has dropped dramatically.
How much of a drop? The 2026 list shows a whopping 65 percent drop in Fortune 500 companies compared to the 2025 list, from 355 big names to just 131 corporations this year.
CNBC said the biggest name to drop from the Corporate Equality Index is Walmart, the world’s largest retailer.
Walmart was awarded with a perfect 100 score on the Index in 2023 before announcing a year later it was dropping controversial Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, initiatives.
Other big names to drop out are automaker Ford and Lowe’s, the home improvement chain, and Tractor Supply.
Talking about the CNBC article on the “Washington Watch” program, Washington Stand writer Suzanne Bowdey said the Human Rights Campaign has struck fear in corporate boardrooms for two decades. Now the corporate CEOs are not afraid to push back, she said.
“I think they're making a financially sound decision,” she observed, “by saying, ‘Look, we're just gonna walk away.’ All we've really wanted from these companies is that they would be politically neutral, and that's what we're starting to see.”
The main tool HRC used to threaten Fortune 500 companies, Bowdey explained, is a low score on the Corporate Equality Index and the bad publicity that follows. To see corporations drop out, and brave backlash for doing so, is a “seismic shift” from previous years.
Public grew tired of pronouns
On the program, Bowdey was asked by show host Tony Perkins if this is a temporary setback for the Human Rights Campaign or more like a permanent “implosion” of its lobbying efforts.
“I don’t think that it’s temporary,” Bowdey replied. “I think this is a cultural revolution from the bottom up.”
The views of the American public have shifted greatly to the right over several years, Bowdey said, especially related to transgender rights. That issue has touched everything from restroom privacy and female sports to mandatory employee training on pronoun usage.
“It’s absolutely wild what they were being asked to do,” she said of the public, “and they're just saying no more.”
Regarding the politics behind the issue, Perkins recalled how Donald Trump’s presidential campaign saw that shift in polling, which produced one of the campaign’s biggest ads leading up to Election Day.
AFN previously reported then-candidate Trump recognized that shift, and embraced it, when he was shown polling by the American Principles Project over the issue of women-only sports.
Once in the White House, President Trump fulfilled that campaign promise surrounded by female athletes when he signed an executive order (pictured above) to protect female-only sports through the U.S. Department of Education.
“My hope that this continues to move forward,” Perkins commented. “So that it does become the norm as opposed to a temporary shift in the cultural awareness, of the destructive nature, of these policies.”
