Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall is calling on the nation’s business leaders to disavow and prohibit racially discriminatory DEI-centered initiatives within their companies.
In a recent letter addressed to The Business Roundtable, Marshall and fourteen other state Attorneys General demanded that the organization refocus on fostering economic growth and job creation rather than the continued enforcement of DEI-related policy.
“DEI initiatives are contrary to the core purpose of publicly traded companies,” read the correspondence. “Corporations are designed to foster economic growth, create jobs, and maximize shareholder returns. Corporate officers can’t accomplish those things and fulfill their fiduciary duties if they are focused on arbitrary goals that are at best ill-defined and at worst discriminatory and offensive to most Arkansans.”
“The Business Roundtable must abandon its redefinition and rededicate itself to merit-based hiring, which supports the actual purpose of a corporation and complies with employment laws. The Business Roundtable’s member CEOs should immediately abandon quotas, targets, racial preferences, and other discriminatory DEI practices.”
RELATED: Alabama AG: Costco DEI practices undermine ‘the American dream’
Marshall issued a separate statement regarding the call for corporations to abandon DEI policies.
“The purpose of publicly traded companies is to drive job creation, fuel economic growth, and maximize returns for shareholders,” said Marshall.
“If discriminatory DEI practices actually advanced those goals, companies wouldn’t be retreating from them. However, we continue to see some corporations prioritize divisive ideology over their fiduciary duties, ultimately harming the very shareholders they’re obligated to protect. Let’s be clear: if your company is using racial preferences or quotas, that discriminatory path has been ruled unlawful by the U.S. Supreme Court.”
In January, Marshall joined several colleagues in another letter addressed to Costco, requesting that the retail giant end its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices because they’re “unlawful.”
“Although Costco’s motto is ‘do the right thing,’ it appears that the company is doing the wrong thing—clinging to DEI policies that courts and businesses have rejected as illegal,” the attorneys general wrote. “Costco should treat every person equally and based on their merit, rather than based on divisive and discriminatory DEI practices.
According to a report, in recent weeks, companies like IBM, Gannett, UnitedHealth Group, Constellation Brands Inc., and even the MLB have removed DEI-related material from websites and scrapped controversial policies based on race and ideology.
Austen Shipley is the News Director for Yellowhammer News. You can follow him on X @ShipleyAusten
