The director of the Free Enterprise Project (FEP) presented a shareholder proposal at CVS Health’s annual meeting on May 11, requesting an audit of the company’s policies that he believes are discriminatory. He also called on investors to hold board members accountable for the company’s equity agenda.
“What we are asking the company for is a report that focuses on whether, in its myriad diversity, inclusion, and equity efforts, the company is discriminating against employees that it has not honored with the label ‘diverse,'” FEP Director Scott Shepard said at the virtual meeting while presenting the proposal.
Shepard noted that in its quest for so-called “equity,” the company has shown a preference for employees who are female or members of certain racial groups. He added that on top of the legal and moral conundrums that such policies raise, they are further compounded by the current demographics found within the company’s workforce:
CVS admits that nearly half of its pharmacists are “racially or ethnically diverse,” as are 58 percent of total employees, while more than 70 percent are women. Yet CVS still maintains special programs that target the advancement of these already overrepresented groups while excluding and diminishing groups that are genuinely underrepresented. And it sponsors mandatory employee-training programs during which white, male, and Christian employees are called out for special condemnation.
Yet, with all that, the company is happy to report that there is a Black Colleague Support Group that non-blacks can join as allies, but somehow no White or Male Colleague Support Group to push upper management to stop this torrent of discrimination and hostility against the surface-characteristic groups that, as CVS itself acknowledges, are genuinely statistically underrepresented at CVS.
FEP’s proposal was not approved, but Shepard urged CVS Health investors to hold board members accountable for the company’s policies:
I will grant you that there are a few white men who should be dismissed from CVS – those who sit on the board, who, with the other board members, should all go for countenancing, encouraging, and sponsoring discrimination on the forbidden grounds of race, sex, orientation, and ethnicity.
In the 2022 edition of “Balancing the Boardroom,” FEP advised investors to vote against every member of CVS Health’s board of directors.
Shepard’s supporting statement can be read here and heard below:
“CVS Health publishes pie charts, graphs, and statistics that break down its workforce by skin color, sex, and sexual orientation,” said FEP Associate Ethan Peck. “All we’re asking of CVS is to be as forthright with its shareholders about the effects of its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) program as it is about the skin pigmentation of its workforce.”
Conservative investors can learn more about how corporations are discriminating in the name of equity by downloading FEP’s 2022 editions of the “Investor Value Voter Guide” and the “Balancing the Boardroom” guide. Other action items for investors and non-investors alike can be found on FEP’s website.