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Elevance Health shareholders—following the recommendation of the company’s board of directors—rejected a shareholder proposal that asked the Indianapolis-based health insurer to provide more details on the effectiveness of its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Elevance held the official proxy vote during its annual meeting of shareholders on Wednesday. The company said the tally of votes would be detailed in an upcoming securities filing.
In recommending shareholders reject the proposal, Elevance board of directors said, “We already provide transparent and regular disclosures necessary to assess our workforce composition, practices and policies.”
Diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, efforts have become a debated topic in the corporate world and beyond this year as the Trump administration has targeted such programs at government agencies, universities and other organizations through executive orders.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Alexandra Ferry of the nonprofit shareholder advocacy group As You Sow moved spoke in favor of the pro-DEI measure.
“Well-managed diversity, equity and inclusion programs do not place people into roles they don’t deserve,” Ferry said. “They ensure that bias and discrimination do not impede a company’s ability to hire advanced and retain the best possible employees.”
Competitors including Cigna, CVS Health, Humana and United Health Group release more diversity data than Elevance does, Ferry told shareholders.
On its website, Elevance reports diversity data from its 2023 impact report, noting that 77% of employees are women and 51% are people of color. Furthermore, the company said that 65% of its executives are women and 51% are people of color.
An April 25 analysis from the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance found declining investor support for DEI initiatives.
“Shareholder support for all DEI proposals (both pro- and anti-DEI) steadily declined since 2021 as improved corporate disclosures, investor fatigue, proxy advisor opposition, and heightened legal risks make negotiated withdrawals and majority approvals increasingly rare,” the report said.
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based on this data they are not aligned with the statistics of population diversity, aka discriminating against men. Isn’t that supposed to be bad?
What is bad is your logic. Did you consider that more women might have been hired because they were more qualified? Did you consider the categories of jobs that may include some that have traditionally been more filled by women? One rule of logic is that correlation does not indicate causation. Jumping from these statistics to “aka discriminating against men” just doesn’t hold water unless you dig into underlying data.The tensions in our society are at an uncomfortably high level. One thing we can all do better is to ensure our positions are grounded in fact, not unexamined assumptions.
Having a little trouble comprehending irony, huh? Jonathan’s comment simply inverts the moronic logic the pro-DEI crowd is constantly squawking about.