Several conservative-leaning activist groups have been calling for some major banks to revoke their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)-related policies, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Some groups have been calling for JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs to revoke or scale back on their DEI initiatives, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal. Both of the banks received anti-DEI proposals from the National Center for Public Policy Research (NCPPR) and the National Legal and Policy Center (NLPC).
Meanwhile, two other major banks, Bank of America and Citigroup have come under fire from activists accusing them of discriminating against customers over their religious or political beliefs, according to the WSJ.
Some of the groups targeting these banks include the Heritage Foundation, the NCPPR and the NLPC, the WSJ reported. Each of these groups own small shares in the banks that they have been taking aim at, people familiar told the WSJ.
President Donald Trump has been an outspoken critic of DEI efforts. Shortly after returning to the Oval Office on Monday, Trump signed an executive order to scrap “radical and wasteful” DEI programs across the federal government. Following Trump’s order, all federal employees in DEI roles are expected to be placed on leave starting on Wednesday, Forbes reported.
“We submit shareholder proposals to companies — about 40 this year — basically to get companies back to neutral,” Ethan Peck, the deputy director for the NCPPR’s Free Enterprise Project, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We submitted about ten of them relating to DEI, and two of them that we had targeted were JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. We’ve been doing this for years, so it’s not because there’s any sort of change like with the Trump administration or with Trump’s executive order or with other companies dropping it, that’s not why we’re doing it, we’ve just always done it. We’ve been doing this since DEI became a thing, we immediately started pushing back in 2020. As we’ve done it, our efforts have started strengthening a little bit, and more people started joining.”
Various companies have walked back their DEI policies and efforts in recent months amid growing backlash from consumers and sometimes shareholders, including Walmart, Ford Motors and Boeing. Notably, in December, an appeals court in Louisiana rejected Nasdaq’s proposed rules aimed at increasing diversity on company boards.
“We feel like we lay a lot of the groundwork for pushing back against DEI, at least at the corporate level in the boardrooms,” Peck told the DCNF. “And so it’s nice to see some of the effects in some companies dropping it. Of course, some companies haven’t yet, and that’s why we are just not taking our foot off the gas yet until it’s completely done, and that’s why we’re continuing to submit these [shareholder proposals].”
“We strongly believe that organizations benefit from diverse perspectives, and Goldman Sachs is committed to operating our programs and policies in compliance with the law,” a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs said in a statement shared with the DCNF.
Bank of America and Citigroup both declined to comment to the DCNF.
The Heritage Foundation, the National Legal and Policy Center and JPMorgan Chase did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.
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