More than two decades ago, when gay men and lesbians were prohibited from serving openly in the U.S. military and no state had legalized same-sex marriages, a national LGBTQ+ rights group decided to promote change by grading corporations on their workplace policies.
The Human Rights Campaign initially focused its report card, named the Corporate Equality Index, on ensuring that gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer employees did not face discrimination in hiring and on the job. Just 13 companies received a perfect score in 2002. By last year, 545 businesses did even though the requirements have expanded.
But the scorecard itself has come under attack in recent months by conservative activists who targeted businesses as part of a broader pushback against diversity initiatives. Ford, Harley- Davidson and Lowe’s are among the companies that announced they would no longer participate in the Corporate Equality Index.
Worked at a major company you would instantly know the name of.
They were a large corporation but were not public ally traded. Trillions of dollars in assets with more than 60k people employed.
DEI was a MAJOR push, with not just required corporate training but also sessions held often for minority groups of all types to speak their minds in forums about how to connect with them etc.
DEI initiatives and campaigns were a thing, VP of DEI was hired and they had a whole subsection under HR. Corporate events, entertainment, whole virtual bands playing to the theme of inclusion.
This same company did nothing when facing the burning obvious culture of being yes men to their bosses. They did nothing different than most any other massive rich company for how they treated workers, tracking their activity, location, and even physical assess login to buildings for reviews or as excuse to fire.
In an large address by a major leader in the organization I personally gave virtual written innocuous feedback, that they asked for, only to have that be met within minutes with being told never to do that again. The message wasn’t even seen by the speaker. It was just purely culturally unacceptable to offer any constructive criticism of any kind to people in high enough authority.
More than half a dozen people messaged me to tell me they appreciated I gave it public ally and it needed saying. I didn’t know any of them.
So if people are so important and we value voices being heard equally so much, why would you have people desperate to be treated like people and any such statement be met with greats of reprisal?
Yeah. DEI is fan fare in the same way the office cafeteria and gym were. They are designed to entice talent to come or stay while costing the company minimal amounts to do so.