Coca-Cola, Mastercard, Meta, And Doordash’s Sponsorship Of Conference Featuring Anti-LGBTQ+ Crusader Prompts Shareholder Backlash
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Isaac Montes, imontes@asyousow.org, (917) 674-3510
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA—SEPTEMBER 13, 2024—Today, over 20 shareholders with more than $63 billion in assets sent letters to Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), Mastercard (NYSE:MA), Meta (NASDAQ:META), and DoorDash (NASDAQ:DASH) asking that they publicly disassociate their brands from the Canada Strong & Free conference that they are currently sponsoring and publicly refute the divisiveness, homophobia, hate speech, and far-right activism embodied by Chris Rufo, who is a featured keynote speaker at the conference.
Rufo has been described as a radical activist who has been associated with fueling public fear and opposition to marginalized communities, first by weaponizing a distorted version of “critical race theory” and then by creating propaganda to link LGBTQ-inclusive education practices to pedophilic “grooming.” Rufo’s hate-filled rhetoric and harmful activities run counter to these sponsors stated corporate commitments including:
Coca-Cola: “Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are at the heart of our values and our growth strategy and play an important part in our company's success”
Mastercard: “We value inclusiveness, tolerance, respect, equality and diversity. That is the culture we’ve worked hard to create and cultivate.”
DoorDash: “We’re intentional in our approach to engage people of all backgrounds and foster an environment of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Meta: “Our support of the LGBTQ+ community has been unwavering.”
“Sponsoring this conference runs the risk of connecting these brands with the harm caused by Rufo’s divisive policy agenda,” said Andrew Behar, CEO of shareholder representative As You Sow. “This association is likely to diminish brand equity and goodwill, alienate many customers, harm the ability to recruit and retain top talent, and have a long-term negative financial impact. These companies took many years of thoughtful research to develop DEI policies based on data showing that greater workforce diversity leads to financial outperformance. Investors want to be confident that our boards of directors and executive teams are making thoughtful policy decisions based on what is best for all stakeholders.”
Rufo’s work extends to consulting with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on the creation of Florida’s “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which prohibited implicit bias training by corporations and prohibited schools from teaching about racism, including banning Advanced Placement African American studies courses. The law has been repeatedly struck down by federal courts, who have called it “bordering on unintelligible” and guilty of penalizing viewpoints disfavored by the far-right. In recent essays, Rufo has argued for conservatives to treat Richard Nixon as a model for a “counter revolution” against the left and has given accolades to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
Behar continued, “These sponsoring companies should not be in the same room as this extreme activist whose goals are directly contrary to the company’s publicly stated values in support of diversity, equity, and inclusion. By choosing to associate with a far right radical like Chris Rufo, these companies stand to lose the confidence of investors, customers and employees. We believe these brands will be tarnished by this negative association with culture-war hate and that it will impact company valuation as customers and employees who stand against hate, discrimination, and lies shift loyalties to competitors. We ask these companies to choose harmony over harm and inclusion over division”
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As You Sow is the nation’s leading shareholder representative, with a 30-year track record promoting environmental and social corporate responsibility and advancing values-aligned investing. Its issue areas include climate change, ocean plastics, toxins in the food system, biodiversity, racial justice, and workplace diversity. Click here to view As You Sow’s shareholder resolution tracker.