Black lawmakers press Fortune 500 to pursue DEI as initiatives face pushback

As nationwide backlash toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives grows, the Congressional Black Caucus is pressing major corporations to stand firm on their efforts.

Guidance from the Caucus obtained by Consumers' Research indicates that the lawmakers have pressed companies to reaffirm their "commitments to DEO and reiterate their dedication to uphold these values in their daily decision-making process."

"Following the death of George Floyd in the summer of 2020, many major U.S. corporations pledged more than $50 billion towards addressing racial inequities across the country and committed to strengthening their company's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices and policies," the guidance reads. "Now, in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling ending affirmative action on college campuses, corporate DEI initiatives have come under attack."

The guidance indicated that the CBC initially wrote the Fortune 500 companies in December, demanding that they provide the bloc with updates about their efforts and continue to work with the CBC.

Included in the guidance were a litany of specific questions related to firms' DEI initiatives and their success.

"How is the company's senior leadership accountable for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, and meeting the company's overall commitments?" reads one. Others involve recruitment efforts, turnover rates, employee satisfaction, and an array of other issues.

"This letter confirms what we suspected last week, the Congressional Black Caucus and extreme woke activists are coordinating to pressure Corporate America into maintaining their illegal, racially discriminatory DEI programs," said Consumers' Research Executive Director Will Hild. "This comes at a time when DEI departments are being downsized or eliminated at countless companies across the nation because those organizations have realized the truth, DEI is a liability on their balance sheets and in the courtroom."

"They are a tax on shareholders and a betrayal of consumers, who should be the main focus of any company. The CBC and the groups sending this letter are desperate to keep their racial spoils grift alive, even if it means continuing to use the same failing, illegitimate intimidation tactics that created the DEI cancer in the first place," he continued.

The CBC guidance set a response deadline of Jan. 31.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.