An op-ed published Monday at Fox News cites a new analysis of the country’s biggest companies and businesses that are working directly against American conservatives as the culture wars continue unabated.
“It is not a secret that over the past decade, hundreds of large U.S. corporations have adopted woke policies, regularly injecting left-wing ideals into their products, services and employment practices,” begins Justin Haskins, the director of the Socialism Research Center at The Heartland Institute.
“But some of these businesses have recently gone much further than merely promoting social justice causes; they have chosen to target conservative customers and employees, coercing or forcing Americans to abandon their deeply held beliefs in order to receive important goods or services or to stay employed,” he continued.
He goes on to note that though a great many conservatives are aware of stories involving corporate discrimination over the past few years, many have had difficulty trying to keep up with the specific businesses that have been taking part in the movement and which of those have remained mostly on the sidelines. Now, a new project launched by the 1792 Exchange, a non-profit group, is attempting to shed more light on the growing problem.
Haskins writes that the 1792 Exchange recently launched its Spotlight Report, which assesses more than 1,000 companies’ “policies, practices, and other relevant criteria to determine the likelihood a company will cancel a contract or client, or boycott, divest, or deny services based on views or beliefs.” He said the research team then used those assessments to assign businesses to three categories — “Lower Risk,” “Medium Risk,” and “High Risk.”
He added:
According to the group’s website, “‘High Risk’ companies have generally canceled or denied business relationships based on viewpoint disagreements or pose a high risk of canceling people and businesses who do not share their views.” Out of the more than 1,000 companies evaluated, 147 are currently classified as “High Risk,” which means they are much more likely than other businesses to engage in direct discrimination.
Haskins said that big banks are the most woke. Several banks have leveraged their operations to advance leftist social and ideological perspectives. Bank of America, for instance, evaluates its vendors’ support for LGBTQ views and has discontinued financing certain firearms manufacturers. Additionally, it has extended financial assistance to Planned Parenthood and the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization with a history of singling out conservative groups.
The 1792 Exchange has also classified five major transportation companies as “High Risk”: Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, and XPO Logistics.
Fifteen big names in the “Retailing” sector have been designated as “High Risk” by the 1792 Exchange. Among these are well-known physical retailers like Best Buy, Home Depot, Kohl’s, Lululemon, Macy’s, Madewell, Target, and Walmart, as well as online retailers such as Alibaba, Amazon, Chewy, eBay, Etsy, Shopify, and Warby Parker.
The group also assigned “High Risk” ratings to ten major food and beverage firms, including Altria, Ben & Jerry’s, Cargill, Coca-Cola, HelloFresh, Kellogg’s, McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Starbucks, and the JM Smucker Company.
“The 1792 Exchange outlined nearly 100 additional “High Risk” companies in its report, including some of the most powerful in the world, like Alphabet (the owners of Google), Disney, and Apple,” he noted further.
