(LifeSiteNews) – A new project is launching to raise awareness of “woke” corporations that have adopted practices hostile to their conservative customers and employees, and what can be done about them.
The 1792 Exchange is a nonprofit dedicated to “develop[ing] policy and resources to protect and equip non-profits, small businesses and philanthropy from ‘woke’ corporations to educate Congress and stakeholder organizations about the dangers of ESG (environmental, social, and governance) policies, and to help steer public companies in the United States back to neutral on ideological issues so they can best serve their shareholders and customers with excellence and integrity.”
At Fox News, Heartland Institute Socialism Research Center director Justin Haskins highlights the group’s latest Spotlight Report, a review of more than 1,000 companies’ “policies, practices, and other relevant criteria to determine” how likely they are to “cancel a contract or client, or boycott, divest, or deny services based on views or beliefs.”
The report identifies 147 companies as “high risk”; Haskins highlights 51 of the most egregious examples.
“Numerous large banks are using their financial might to effectively force business customers into adopting climate change policies, even when it will require that those customers dramatically change their business practices,” he writes. “Bank of America vets its vendors based on their commitment to LGBTQ views, and it has ceased lending with some gun manufacturers. It has also provided funding to Planned Parenthood, as well as the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has a long track record of targeting conservative groups.”
“The 1792 Exchange determined that five large transportation companies fall into its ‘High Risk’ category — Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, and XPO Logistics,” he continues. “For instance, American Airlines publicly fought against the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act,” and “Southwest Airlines fought against state laws that sought to enhance election integrity by limiting questionable practices like mail-in balloting.”
As for retailers, Amazon, Best Buy, Chewy, eBay, Etsy, Home Depot, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Shopify, Target, and Walmart are all categorized as “high risk,” with examples including Home Depot “advertis[ing] flyers to its employees about confronting their ‘white privilege, Christian privilege, heterosexual privilege, able-bodied privilege,’ etc.,” according to the Report, and Target removing books that left-wing activists find objectionable.
“How can conservatives push back against these businesses?” Haskins asks. He urges raising awareness of corporations’ woke activities by sharing information like the 1792 Exchange report, moving their business to more friendly alternatives wherever possible, registering one’s objections to woke practices in writing, and pursuing policies against so-called “environmental, social and corporate governance” (ESG) standards, specifically citing reforms by Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
ESG is essentially a scoring system that incentivizes investing in companies not on the basis of their performance for customers and shareholders but rather on their fealty to so-called “social justice” principles such as diversity and environmentalism. It is one of the reasons why so many once-apolitical businesses have in recent years taken stances on issues such as homosexuality, transgenderism, race relations, and abortion.
Some conservatives have also suggested like-minded states band together to amplify their influence against the ESG trend, which in turn would weaken and discourage so-called “woke corporations’” efforts to transform the culture.