Shareholder Activists Challenge LBGT Policies Viewed as Detrimental to Corporate Profits

Shareholder activists opposed to “woke policies” that emphasize LGBT activism over corporate profits are calling on board members to reevaluate their relationship with the Human Rights Campaign and its Corporate Equality Index.

A significant step in the anti-woke efforts came last week when the Free Enterprise Project, an initiative of the National Center for Public Policy Research, presented their fellow Target shareholders with Item 8, a proposal which asks corporate leaders to report on the financial risks associated with their support for what the free enterprise shareholder activists describe as “divisive social and political organizations.”

The Human Rights Campaign headquartered in Washington, D.C. is the nation’s largest LGBT special interest group, according to Influence Watch. The organization also has an affiliated charitable arm known as the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, and the Human Rights Campaign PAC. The campaign established the Corporate Equality Index to operate as a “national benchmark” for measuring how well corporations accommodate the LGBT agenda.

“The Target proposal was a little different from the rest because we’re not just asking the company to review their contributions and partnerships with these ostensible human rights groups,” Ethan Peck, an associate with the Free Enterprise Project, told Restoration News. “We were also asking the company to evaluate the financial risks to its shareholders for continuing to strive for a high score on the Corporate Equality Index because in order to achieve a high score you need to meet certain criteria and those criteria can be very radical.”

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In its supporting statement for Item 8, the Free Enterprise Project drives home the point that shareholder value typically drops when companies take part in “overtly partisan and divisive activism.” The project’s statement points to the examples of Bud Light, which experienced steep drop in revenue after it partnered with a transgender activist, and Disney, which saw its stock fall after assaulting parental rights.

Target has paid partnerships not just with the Human Rights Campaign, but other LGTB activist groups, according to the supporting statement. These groups include the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and Out&Equal, a group that focuses on LGBT equity and inclusion in the workplace.

While making its case for Item 8, the Free Enterprise Project informed shareholders that after Target promoted “radical gender theory in its stories,” the consumer backlash resulted in lost sales, a diminished stock price, and a $12 billion lawsuit that led to Target being rated “high risk on 1792 Exchange’s Corporate Bias Ratings.

“What we’re telling corporations is that you can’t take sides on divisive issues unless you can prove that it’s in the shareholders interest,” Peck said. “We’re not telling you to donate to any right-wing groups either, but we are telling you to be neutral. At the very minimum, companies have a fiduciary responsibility to stay out of these controversies that put shareholder value at risk.”

Target received a perfect score from the Corporate Equality Index from 2013 to 2022, but its score dropped in 2023 for the first time in a decade.

“The criteria for the index changes every year and becomes more and more radical,” Peck said. “They keep pushing the goal posts and they’ll never be satisfied. That’s why corporate leaders shouldn’t be permitted to use other people’s money to push a narrow agenda that conflicts with the values of their shareholders.”

Target’s board released its own statement encouraging shareholders to vote down the proposal, which they did last week.

If it had been approved, Item 8 would have required Target’s board to produce a report for shareholders that details its evaluation of the financial and reputational risks that could arise from its partnerships with outfits like the Human Rights Campaign.

Looking ahead, Peck advises shareholders to be mindful of the rising healthcare costs that could accrue for companies that have agreed to provide coverage for gender transition surgeries. Recent studies highlight how expensive healthcare and “gender affirmation” surgeries are. Corporations would need to accommodate costly, new healthcare procedures if they buckle under pressure from the Human Rights Campaign. 

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During the June 12 shareholder meeting, Scott Shepard, director of the Free Enterprise Project, took Target executives to task for misusing shareholder money.

“Target has given massive amounts of shareholder money—reports last year suggested as much as $50 million—to organizations like GLSEN that then spend that money to, among other things, instruct teachers of young children how to pump them full of radical gender ideology, and then how to hide the traumatic results of that indoctrination from parents for long enough that the children are then hell-bent on making irreversible and crippling medical decisions rather than being comfortable with who they are, as they are,” Shepard said during the meeting.

Target is just one of several companies that have come under scrutiny from the Free Enterprise Project for courting unsavory partnerships.

On June 27, Dell shareholders will have the opportunity vote yeah or nay on a project proposal that asks Dell’s board to list on the company website any recipient of material donations from the company.

The proposals says: “Optimally, this list would include all recipients of $5,000 or more, or would include an explanation of why such donations are not material to the company but still appropriate for the company to undertake.”

In its supporting statement, the project highlights Dell’s partnerships with a “number of organizations that promote the practice of gender transition surgeries on minors and evangelize gender theory to minors.” The supporting statement then poses a question.

“Why are Dell shareholders funding the efforts to spread an ideology seeking to mutilate the reproductive organs of children before they finish puberty?”

The board has released its own statement in opposition to the proposal. But the Free Enterprise Project is determined to play what Peck says is the “long game.”

Ballots are already open for Dell, and the final vote will occur during the June 27 meeting.

“We’re starting to gain some ground, but corporations are still pushing a very left-wing agenda,” Peck said. “The goal is to keep pushing these proposals and to gain a little momentum each year.”

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