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Woke Corporate Hypocrisy

Past Campaigns

Tell Chase Bank to Stop Attacking Free Speech & Religious Liberty

Chase Bank has some big problems. The massive financial institution refused to even meet with some of its largest investors to discuss the Viewpoint Diversity Business Index, the first comprehensive measure of corporate respect for free speech and religious liberty. But that’s not all: Chase appears to be actively discriminating against groups that don’t agree with the banking giant’s cultural agenda. Chase closed the account of the National Committee for Religious Freedom less than a month after it was opened. The nonprofit, chaired by former U.S. Senator and Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, was informed that the organization had to reveal its donor list in order for the account to be restored. Make no mistake: If Chase can do this to a former governor and United States Senator, they can do it to you, too. NTC is proud to partner with the National Center for Public Policy Research to push back against these outrageous actions. Demand answers from CEO Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan Chase senior leadership!       [Photo credit: Rebecca Barray, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, via Flickr (cropped)]

Past Campaigns

Shut Down by Amazon Following False Accusations of Racism — Demand Answers

Brandon Jackson came home on May 25 to discover he had been locked out of his Amazon Echo, which controlled many of his electronics — including his lights. Why? A delivery driver claimed he heard racist slurs through the doorbell. Jackson is black, wasn’t home, and has video showing the delivery driver wearing headphones at the time of the incident. Even after showing proof of his innocence to Amazon, it took the company over a week to unlock his devices. This should never have happened in the first place. Taking protective action to guarantee the safety of employees is reasonable; shutting someone out of their own property is not. Demand answers from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and a promise this will never happen again!

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The Toxic Ten: The Year’s Worst Examples of Shareholder Activism

Corporations have moved dramatically to the left on social and cultural issues over the past decade in America — in some cases by force. Shareholder resolutions have pushed publicly traded companies to put social issues over profits. Any activist holding over $2,000 in stock for a period of at least a year can sponsor a shareholder resolution at a corporation’s annual board meeting. As a result, corporations have been pressed to take positions on everything from abortion to gun control and LGBTQ policies, just to name a few. Although only around 10% of all resolutions pass, they still force companies to concede ground to radical social causes. 2023 in particular has been a year full of extreme shareholder resolutions. Here are ten of the most outrageous: MasterCard was pressured by left-wing shareholders to track gun-related transactions, creating a de facto national firearm database. Read the full story here. Bank of America was pushed by shareholders to release details on how the company would meet the 2030 climate transition target. Only 28% of shareholders voted or the resolution, but it still put the public spotlight on the company, forcing them to commit to other disclosures related to climate and manufacturing. Read the full story here. Johnson & Johnson and The Home Depot were forced by the majority of shareholders to conduct racial equity audits of their respective companies. The vast majority of these shareholder resolutions concern so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) and climate change. Johnson & Johnson and Home Deport are now required to perform these “equity” audits. Read the full story here. Boeing is now forced by shareholders to support climate reforms the run counter to the financial interests of the company. Activist nonprofits like “As You Sow” are leading the push for similar shareholder resolutions that inject radical social policies into business models. Read the full story here. Exxon Mobil was at the mercy of environment groups that secured passage of resolutions forcing the corporation to undertake cumbersome sustainability and decarbonization efforts, putting the profitability of the corporation at risk. Read the full story here. CNX was met with shareholder resolutions demanding the company adhere to the Paris Climate Agreement and outwardly lobby for its global adoption. The resolution was ultimately defeated, but its consideration included a devastating public relations campaign that damaged the brand. Read the full story here. Jack in the Box, the popular fast food restaurant chain, was made to adopt a resolution requiring the corporation to solely support sustainable — and onerous — packaging sponsored by Green Century Capital Management. Read the full story here. Apple was forced by shareholders to oversee a third-party audit of their racial equity standards, and to go “above and beyond all legal and regulatory matters” to ensure people of color are prioritized for hiring in the name of civil rights. This vague language calls for Apple to discriminate against certain races in the name of “equity.” Read the full story here. Target was the target of shareholder demands to support a racial and gender scorecard published by Arjuna Capital, an investment firm committed to “divest from fossil fuels, promoting gender pay equity, and fighting internet hate speech.” Read the full story here. Disney faced shareholder resolutions calling for the company to publicly support “LGBTQ+” issues and provide a detailed report explaining how it will support “human rights” in Florida. Read the full story here.

Legacy NTC Campaigns

Send a Message to CEOs: Stop Pushing LGBT Marketing on Kids!

No matter your background, faith, or even sexual orientation, there’s one message everyone should be able to agree on when it comes to LGBT marketing by corporate America: leave the kids alone! That’s the message you’ll send to CEOs from coast-to-coast when you add your name to the petition on this page. In the United States, adults have the freedom to live their lives as they wish. At the same time, the perspectives of people of faith should be respected. And when it comes to discussions about sex and gender, parents should be in control. Sadly, boardrooms of businesses across the country are filled with people who feel they know better. They push kids’ books promoting gender confusion, stories about “nonbinary” babies, and instruction encouraging young girls to seek puberty blockers. Sign the petition on this page to tell America’s CEOs to stop pushing LGBT marketing on kids!

Past Campaigns

Tell Walmart to Stop Funding Divisive DEI Training in Public Schools

Walmart’s wokeward drift continues. It’s bad enough the retail giant pushes critical race theory (CRT) trainings on its employees — now, they’re bringing those principles to public schools. The Washington Free Beacon found Walmart supporting so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs at public schools in Bentonville, Arkansas and nearby Fayetteville. Walmart Foundation funding underwrote sessions in which teachers were instructed about “intersectionality,” “microaggressions,” and that “perfectionism” is a form of “white supremacy.” Walmart attempted to wriggle out of responsibility, saying they “did not direct or encourage any specific curriculum around CRT.” They may not have drafted lesson plans, but the company was more than happy to connect education officials with the organizations that did — like the Racial Equity Institute, which teaches that “all our systems, institutions, and outcomes emanate from the racial hierarchy on which the United States was built.” Send a message to Walmart Foundation President Kathleen McLaughlin: stop pushing divisive DEI in public schools! [Photo credit: Mike Mozart of TheToyChannel & JeepersMedia, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr (cropped)]

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Bigger Meaning Behind Bud Light Backlash

It hasn’t been a good month for Bud Light. On April 1, Dylan Mulvaney posted a video announcing Bud Light sent custom beer cans emblazoned with the TikTok star’s face to commemorate “day 365 of womanhood” — the one-year anniversary of Mulvaney coming out as transgender. Bud Light touts itself as “Easy to Drink, Easy to Enjoy,” but many Americans found the Mulvaney partnership hard to swallow. Musician Kid Rock recorded a video blasting a case of Bud Light with a gun. Author Matt Walsh spearheaded a boycott of the brand. And U.S. Senator Ted Cruz told Newsweek he was “hard-pressed to think of an instance where a company understood less about the consumers who actually purchase their product.” On Monday, April 10, Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch saw a three percent drop in its stock. Bud Light’s initial response to the controversy? Dead silence. The Twitter account of the beer brand — known for posting multiple times daily — went dark for two weeks. When Budweiser did finally speak up, it was via an effusively patriotic ad in which a narrator proclaims, “This is a story bigger than beer. This is the story of the American spirit.” In that much, Budweiser is right — albeit unintentionally. The lessons from Bud Light’s marketing mishap are far greater than the sum of its parts. The visceral response from everyday Americans wasn’t about hate for Dylan Mulvaney, transphobia, or even Bud Light — it was yet another instance of a major corporation needlessly injecting itself into a culture war, and it was a breaking point for many Americans tired of seeing everything politicized at every turn. This time, the people pushed back.       [Photo credit: Gonzalo Arizpe]

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Speech Police Partner with Puffin Books to Censor Classic Children’s Stories

On February 18, Puffin Books announced it would be revising and issuing new versions of classic children’s stories by Roald Dahl such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, and James and the Giant Peach. Dahl has been dead since 1990. The decision was the result of a partnership between the Roald Dahl Story Company (which controls the rights to Dahl’s books) and an organization called “Inclusive Minds,” a company that pairs so-called “Inclusion Ambassadors” with authors to “help identify language and portrayals that could be inauthentic or problematic.” Inclusive Minds claims not to “edit or rewrite texts,” but their actions say otherwise. The changes to the books include modifying the description of Augustus Gloop, the gluttonous child in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, from “enormously fat” to “enormous”; the famed Oompa Loompas are now gender-neutral “small people” instead of “small men”; the tractors described in The Fabulous Mr. Fox are no longer “black, murderous, brutal-looking monsters” but now “murderous brutal-looking monsters.” In the novel Witches, a woman masquerading as a “cashier in a supermarket or typing letters for a businessman” is now a “top scientist or running a business.” In James and the Giant Peach, Aunt Sponge, who was once “terrifyingly fat / And tremendously flabby at that” is now merely “a nasty old brute.” Public outcry in response to the news was loud and swift, from everyday American to British royalty. Queen Consort Camilla Parker Bowles said, “Please remain true to your calling, unimpeded by those who may wish to curb the freedom of your expression or impose limits on your imagination.” Comedian Ricky Gervais pondered “whether they’ll change any of the words I’ve used in my work after I’m dead, to spare those who are fragile and easily offended.” Salman Rushdie, an author who was stabbed at an August 2022 book event, said of the censorship, “Roald Dahl was a bigot and he never supported me, but really?” On February 24, Puffin Books backtracked, announcing they would print two versions of Dahl’s books: new, revised, and censored versions and unchanged “classic” editions. …unless you have the e-book versions of the Dahl tomes. On March 14, news broke that Puffin Books would be forcing e-book readers to accept and download the updated editions altered by their “inclusive” sensitivity editors. The Foundation for Individual Rights (FIRE), which has collaborated with the New Tolerance Campaign in the past, rightly stated: “Let’s leave Dahl’s words the way he intended them to be read. Let the work speak for itself, so we can all speak freely about the work.” We agree.

Past Campaigns

Limited Run Games Must Apologize for Caving to Agitator Demands

One complaint — by one transgender activist — about one tweet — from six years ago — was all it took for a videogame company to terminate an employee. This week media was ablaze with news that boutique gaming publisher Limited Run Games (LRG) fired their community manager Kara Lynne (pictured above) for not “supporting an inclusive culture.” Lynne’s violations? She expressed excitement for the upcoming Harry Potter game; she followed three conservative influencers on Twitter; and, in 2016 — before even working for LRG — she wrote a tweet concerned about sex offenders using pro-transgender laws to commit crimes. All of this was too much for transgender agitator Purple Tinker, who tweeted at Lynne’s employer LRG calling Lynne “a transphobe who follows a veritable who’s who of right-wing transphobic creeps. Unless and until she is fired from the company permanently, I am not giving them another single dime.” LRG gave in, ending Lynne’s employment — but even that wasn’t enough for Tinker, who went on to demand a refund for “over $1200 in pending orders.” Kara Lynne did nothing wrong! Lynne has moved on and is currently seeking other opportunities…but questions remain for LRG. Tell Limited Run Games co-owners Douglas Bogart and Josh Fairhurst to apologize for caving to cancel culture!

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New Tolerance Campaign Announces 2022 “Worst of the Woke” Awards

WORST OF THE WOKE 2022 “The Great Unwokening” The Top 10 most hypocritical institutions of the year — and one “Champion of Tolerance”  In the past year, there was no shortage of institutions pushing phony tolerance under the banners of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and “environmental, social, and governance” initiatives. But 2022 was also notable for the American public pushing back on institutions and their double-standards. Here are the 10 worst offenders: Award Winner: Disney* Reason: In 2022, now-ousted CEO Bob Chapek gave a master class on how not to respond to woke demands. Following the passage of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill (erroneously yet ubiquitously branded by the media as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill), Chapek demurred when Disney employees demanded the company condemn the legislation, rightly asserting that “corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds.” Weeks later, Disney did an about-face, declaring the company would support organizations seeking to “replace” the law or have it “struck down in the courts.” Florida legislators and Governor Ron DeSantis responded by stripping Disney of special taxation and self-governance perks it’s enjoyed for decades. The public wasn’t buying Disney’s activism either — quite literally. Following a string of box office bombs, in November Disney abruptly announced Chapek would be stepping down as CEO, making way for his predecessor Bob Iger to return. Iger stepped back into the role of chief executive committing to “quiet” the obsession with cultural issues at the entertainment powerhouse and “respect” consumers of their content. Award Winner: BlackRock* Reason: When you follow the ESG money trail, almost all roads lead to BlackRock. The financial behemoth manages $10 trillion dollars, and has been prioritizing investments in “socially conscious” companies and those dedicated to “environmental sustainability” — except in China, a nation notorious for its rampant industrial pollution and human rights abuses. When called out on the hypocrisy, CEO Larry Fink doubled down. The result: treasurers in West Virginia, Louisiana, South Carolina, Missouri, Florida, Arkansas, Utah, and Arizona pulled state investments from BlackRock totaling $4.28 billion. Award Winner: Twitter* Reason: After years of subjective censorship, account suspensions, and partisan activism, Twitter was at a breaking point by October of this year when Elon Musk stepped in and took over the tech giant, ushering in a new era of free speech and open debate. He also pulled back the curtain on Twitter’s previous policy revealing the platform’s critics’ worst fears: Twitter’s staff censored accounts at the bidding of political elites. Award Winner: Apple Reason: Apple touts a commitment to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the United States, while contracting with suppliers in China using forced labor that has propelled the company to record profits. In 2022, Apple took the hypocrisy to a dangerous new level: blocking iPhone communication features in China at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party to help crush domestic protests. Award Winner: American Express Reason: At American Express, prejudice and hypocrisy are everywhere you want to be. In 2022, journalist Christopher Rufo exposed AmEx rules that incentivized hiring and promotion based on race and sex. Not only are such policies illegal and in violation of the company’s fiduciary duties — they’re also un-American. In 2022, NTC unveiled the “UnAmerican Express” campaign in partnership with Color Us United and Consumers’ Research, rallying grassroots action that to date has generated more than 46,000 messages to state pension trustees alerting them to the concerning personnel standards at AmEx. Award Winner: Georgetown University Reason: The woke mob roared into action in January following a tweet by constitutional scholar Ilya Shapiro declaring SCOTUS nominees should be selected based on accomplishment rather than race. Georgetown Law responded by suspending Shapiro as the school’s Executive Director. The university exerted no such discipline in 2018 when Professor Christine Fair wished “miserable deaths” on supporters of Justice Kavanaugh. During a months-long Georgetown “investigation” into Shapiro’s tweet, students demanded that Georgetown use the moment to develop a “reparations” package that included free food and a designated place on campus for students to cry. The fiasco prompted Shapiro to walk away from Georgetown — and its cancel-culture mob — entirely. Award Winner: ACLU* Reason: The Amber Heard-Johnny Depp defamation trial made news for weeks. At the heart of the case: the ACLU and a 2018 op-ed bylined by Heard that implied abuse at Depp’s hands. Courtroom testimony from ACLU Chief Operating Officer Terrence Dougherty revealed the organization was “involved in conceiving, drafting and placing” the piece. By the time all was said and done, Heard was found guilty of defaming Depp, the #MeToo movement was effectively dead, and, in the words of Richard Klein, the once-respected ACLU had become little more than “a disgraced group of attorneys.” Award Winner: The Olympics Reason: The International Olympic Committee bent over backwards to accommodate China’s authoritarian government during the Winter Olympics in Beijing: gaslighting about the wellbeing of tennis star Peng Shuai and refusing to condemn CCP human rights abuses (in direct contravention of the Olympic Charter and Code of Ethics). Fox News host Laura Ingraham stepped up and rallied concerned Americans to tell NBC #NotOneMinute of their time would be spent watching Olympics television coverage. With Ingraham’s amplification, NTC supporters sent more than 26,000 messages to NBC executives. The United States staged a diplomatic boycott of the Games, and ratings reached record lows for NBC. Award Winner: School Boards Reason: “Nonpartisan” school boards pushing far-left agendas got a wake-up call this year, as parents asserted their right to know what their children are being taught in the classroom. In-home instruction via Zoom during the COVID pandemic alerted parents to the radical gender ideology and critical race theory being taught in grade schools. This year, alarm turned into action as grassroots campaigns driven by concerned parents replaced school board members pushing cultural agendas. Award Winner: The NBA Reason: The world of pro sports continued its wokeward drift in 2022, but none more so than the National Basketball Association (NBA). This year, for the first time in its history,

Legacy NTC Campaigns

Morningstar Revises Antisemitic Policy Following NTC Action

In October 2022, 17 state attorney generals sent a scathing letter to Morningstar’s lawyers sharing concerns that the company’s subsidiary Sustainalytics is using ESG ratings to deny investment in corporations with ties to Israel. The ratings “draw no distinction between companies that operate in certain parts of Israel and those that operate in countries responsible for horrific human rights abuses,” the letter states, outlining how Morningstar views investment in Israeli companies on the same level as China, Russia, and Iran. Following work encompassing Jewish advocacy organizations and NTC grassroots action, Morningstar announced on Oct. 31, 2022 that it would be revising its policy.       [Photo credit: Montecruz Foto, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr (cropped)]

Legacy NTC Campaigns

Tell State Pension Boards: Divest from Un-American Express

Whether you know it or not, your taxpayer dollars are funding “wokeness” run amok at American Express — and you have the power to turn the tide of this madness. There’s nothing American about viewing employees primarily by their race — but Un-American Express is doing exactly that. Last August, Manhattan Institute fellow Christopher Rufo detailed the full embrace of woke doctrine at Un-American Express. Their “anti-racism” program actually perpetuates racism and inequality among their customers and employees. Among their policies: AmEx is tying executive bonuses to racial “equity” instead of merit AmEx instituted critical race theory training, teaching staff that “capitalism is racist” and asking workers to rank themselves on a hierarchy of “privilege” AmEx gave preferential contracts to suppliers based on race All of these practices are possibly unconstitutional and illegal. Even worse — your taxpayer dollars are funding this nonsense via mutual funds, index funds, and even direct investments made by state pension boards, who may not even be aware they’re directing taxpayer revenue to underwrite Un-American wokeness run wild. But this isn’t a lost cause — far from it! In January, West Virginia Treasurer Riley Moore announced he would divest all state investments from the woke capitalists at Blackrock. Now it’s Un-American Express’s turn. Send a message to your state pension board: their responsibility to taxpayers like you requires they divest from Un-American Express!

Past Campaigns

Hundreds of Advocates Told Coca-Cola to Stand Up to Russia

Update: After widespread pressure including hundreds of messages sent to Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey by NTC advocates, Coca-Cola announced its suspension of operations in Russia on March 8, 2022. One year ago, Coca-Cola Company CEO James Quincey was falling all over himself to denounce the passage of voting rights legislation in the state of Georgia that critics called “restrictive.” “Let me be crystal clear and unequivocal — this legislation is unacceptable,” he told CNBC. “This legislation is wrong and needs to be remedied, and we will continue to advocate for it both in private and in now even more clearly in public.” Contrast that with the soft-drink giant’s muted response to the ongoing brutal invasion of Ukraine by Russian military forces: dead silence. If the Coca-Cola Company truly believes in its stated values, then this moment requires that they condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and join the many global brands ceasing to do business in the country. It’s not as though the Coca-Cola Company prefers to remain silent on social issues — their website’s homepage currently highlights company positions on climate change, “racial equity,” and features an image of a Coca-Cola LGBTQ-themed lapel pin. On March 3, the company issued a statement, “Support for Ukraine,” in which they outlined their donation of “€1 million to support the brave efforts of the Red Cross movement operating in Ukraine” and “a further €550,000 to support refugees” — financial contributions for Coca-Cola that represent a drop in the bucket compared to their consistent revenues of more than $30 billion each year. Notable about Coca-Cola’s statement of “Support for Ukraine”? No mention of Russia whatsoever. It’s not difficult to connect the dots: Coca-Cola’s Swiss-based bottler, Coca-Cola HBC, gets about 21% of its volume from Russia and Ukraine. There is no doubt that suspending business ties with Russia would be a blow to Coca-Cola’s bottom line, but if they’re truly the socially conscious brand they claim to be, cutting ties with Russia is the only choice.   [photo credit]

Past Campaigns

Hundreds of NTC Advocates Demanded that Golden State Warriors Leadership Condemn Uyghur Persecution in China

Update: NTC advocates sent countless messages to Golden State Warriors President Rick Welts and VP of Communications Raymond Ridder demanding they explicitly condemn the persecution of the Uyghurs taking place in China.  Unfortunately, Mr. Welts and Mr. Ridder have remained silent.  On January 17, news broke that Chamath Palihapitiya, co-owner of the Golden State Warriors basketball team, asserted that “nobody cares” about the persecution of Muslim Uyghurs in China. “Nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs, okay,” Palihapitiya said on the “All In” podcast. “You bring it up because you care and I think it’s nice that you care. The rest of us don’t care. I’m just telling you a very hard, ugly truth. Of all the things that I care about, yes, it is below my line,” Palihapitiya explained. He subsequently issued a general apology. Hours later, the team’s PR department went into damage control mode — and their statement only made things worse: “As a limited investor who has no day-to-day operating functions with the Warriors, Mr. Palihapitiya does not speak on behalf of our franchise, and his views certainly don’t reflect those of our organization,” the team tweeted. Exactly what “views” would those be? As Casey Mattox wryly paraphrased: “His views do not reflect our views which we will not be releasing at this time and, to all appearances, are functionally the same as his views.” If the Golden State Warriors are serious about standing up against human rights abuses in China and disagree with Chamath Palihapitiya’s assertion that “nobody cares,” they need to step up and say it.   [photo: Mike Disharoon “Mike D,” [CC BY-SA 2.0], via [CC BY-SA 4.0] / Wikimedia Commons]

Past Campaigns

Tell CEO Karen Lynch You’re DONE with CVS Health Until They End Hypocritical CRT Trainings

On Wednesday, September 22, in a blistering exposé, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Christopher Rufo published insider information revealing the latest major U.S. corporation to go “woke”: CVS Health. In the article, Rufo presents information from multiple whistleblowers detailing a so-called “antiracist” training program that required employees to deconstruct their “privilege.” Trainers told CVS Health employees to circle their identities — “including race, gender, sexuality, and religion” — and then rank themselves accordingly on a “privilege” scale. Larry Merlo, who served as the CEO of CVS Health until January of this year, hosted a conversation with Boston University professor and leading proponent of critical race theory Ibram Kendi, who told more than 25,000 CVS Health employees that Americans are “walking through society completely soaked in racist ideas,” including children as young as two to three years old. “Our kids are basically functioning on racist ideas, choosing who to play with based on the kid’s skin color,” Kendi said. As wage-and-hour CVS Health employees were lectured on their “privilege,” Merlo raked in a salary of $22 million — 618 times the median company wage of $35,529. CVS Health must end its hypocritical critical race theory trainings. Merlo is now retired. His replacement, Karen Lynch, took over as the CEO of CVS Health in February. She also sits on the company’s Board of Directors. Her appointment brings with it an opportunity to end future CRT trainings for CVS Health employees, encouraging an environment in which no one is labeled as inherently racist and everyone is valued equally. Send a message to CEO Karen Lynch: tell her you will no longer support CVS Health until they end their hypocritical CRT Trainings!  

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