Disney shareholders vote overwhelmingly to continue in Human Rights Campaign index

Disney shareholders voted overwhelmingly to continue their company’s participation in the Human Rights Foundation’s Corporate Equality Index, which measures corporate support. LGBTQ+ Cause and Disney consistently receive a perfect score.

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The owners of only 1% of the stock voted in favor of the right-wing group’s proposal to draw Disney from the index. Multiple media, This means that 99% supported participation. The vote took place on Thursday. Disney has a perfect score of 100 at this year’s index. This has been around since 2007.

The National Center for Public Policy Studies’ Free Enterprise Project has submitted its proposal. The Free Enterprise project is “original and best opponent of the Awakening of American Corporate Life Acquisition.” press release From the center.

“The HRC, where Disney has paid partnerships, claims that CEI is “a benchmark tool for corporate policy… related to LGBT employees,” but in reality it works like a company’s social credit score,” the organization says. A statement supporting the resolution. “The threat of bad scores comes from businesses, enforcing political bids such as HRC (Glaad, Glsen, Trevor Project, Glaad, etc.) because Disney has not made these efforts as clearly outlined in the CEI standards, preventing businesses from achieving full scores, as Disney has on a continuous basis.”

“Pressing the belief that they can be born in the wrong body and that such beliefs should be asserted by taking adolescent blockers or sometimes undergoing experimental surgery behind the back of their parents can help Disney get out of its business by voting in favour of our suggestions,” the statement continued.

Incidentally, although gender-maintaining surgery is not “experimental,” it is rarely performed even in minors, and other gender-affirming procedures are not administered behind the parent’s back. And while transgender people make up a minority in the US population and participants in the sport of girls and women, they are still strong. Furthermore, women’s toilets and religious freedom are not threatened.

The Disney board of directors recommended that they vote on the proposal, given the company’s existing practices to assess participation in transparency efforts and ESG oversight from the board. [environmental, social and governance] Reporting, labor equity issues, human rights policies and we do not believe that this proposal will provide additional value to shareholders. ”

The HRC Foundation – the Education Division of HRC – praised the results of the vote. “This vote gives us clear values ​​from Disney shareholders.” Statement from Eric Broome, Vice President of the Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship. “They know what we know – despite all the noise, commitment to inclusion, they pay a comparative dividend and help with literal revenue. And they are not alone. They are not alone. Shareholders of Costco, Apple, John Deere and other companies have rejected significant efforts over the past few months. – These are current and future employees and customers.

The HRC Foundation noted that the overwhelming majority of corporate executives believes they will support diversity and inclusion initiatives and improve financial performance. Research shows that such initiatives can also help attract employees.

Disney has long been the far right target for support for the LGBTQ+ community. Back in 1997, the Southern Baptist Treaty, a conservative Christian denomination, called for a boycott of the company. I opposed a short scene with a gay character in the live action version of 2017 beauty and the beast. In 2019, 1 million moms urged boycotting the filmToy Story 4 This is because it depicts two women failing to pick up their children at school.

In 2022 and 2023, Disney received some backlash from conservative activists and Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis in its biggest employer, Florida, against the so-called custody or “no gay voice” bill. The company also received some criticism from LGBTQ+ employees and activists, but they felt the opposition was too weak or delayed. The bill has become law, but is now obstructed by courts.