How Companies Are Seduced by the Woke Side – By Noah Wall (Real Clear Policy) / July 13, 2023
Angry customers have visited their wrath upon Bud Light, Target, Kohls as well as other high-profile companies that have dived headlong into the culture war. What motivates corporations to risk their corporate reputations in embracing extreme woke politics continues to baffle moderate, conservative, and even a significant portion of progressive-leaning Americans. So why do they do it?
The answer, in a nutshell, is enormous pressure from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest LGBTQ+ organization.
Raking in $46 million in revenues in 2020 alone, HRC is a formidable leftwing political juggernaut. HRC leverages its political standing to pressure major corporations into implementing its extremist agenda. Its chief weapon is its Corporate Equality Index (CEI), which assigns companies a numerical score based on their compliance with criteria related to their support of and engagement with the LGBTQ+ community.
Even companies one would not presume to be woke devote considerable resources toward scoring well on the annual CEI survey. Many manage to score in the 60% to 70% range by, for example, specifically itemizing both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression” in their nondiscrimination policies. This only counts for 5 points, perhaps because HRC claims that 99.7% of responding companies already do this. Extending access to all medical benefits to same-sex partners and domestic partners earns a company 10 points. Offering “family formation benefits” to same sex and domestic partners is worth another 10 points. Companies score 5 points for transgender inclusion best practices which include “supportive restrooms,” gender neutral dress codes, policies for “optional” sharing of gender pronouns. Having an employee resource group or a diversity council adds another 10 points to a CEI rating. Points incentivize employers to conduct outreach efforts or engage with the broader LGBTQ+ community by specifically recruiting LGBTQ+ employees. Instituting a “supplier diversity program” that specifically seeks out suppliers with LGBTQ+ owned businesses is another item on the basic checklist.
