Over 1,000 large corporations received bias ratings from a nonprofit organization seeking to determine how hostile the companies were to particular viewpoints. One Alabama-based corporation, Regions Financial, was labeled “medium risk.”
The 1792 Exchange recently released its Spotlight Report, which assesses policies, practices and other criteria to determine how likely a company is to cancel contracts, clients or investments due to viewpoint diversity.
Companies were given a “lower,” “medium” or “higher” risk rating based on several sets of criteria, such as whether the company has previously denied service to customers or supplies based on religious or political affiliations or whether it has given money to charitable organization based on ideology.
“High risk” companies were found to have canceled or denied business to people and other organizations who did not share their views. “Medium risk” companies, on the other hand, were found to have “demonstrated a willingness to advance one-sided ideological agendas.”
The 1792 Exchange rated Birmingham-based bank Region Financial “medium risk” for several reasons.
The report found that Regions’ employment policies “fail to protect against discrimination based on political affiliation, views and religion.” It also found that Regions pledged to “vet vendors based on LGBTQ policies.”
However, Regions was not found to have targeted businesses and customers for political purposes. According to the report, the 1792 Exchange found no cases of the banking company terminating businesses due to political beliefs or religious affiliation. It also found that Regions does not discriminate in its charitable donations.
“While Regions Financial has not terminated business relationships due to religious or political beliefs, the company does vet vendors according to their LGBTQ protections,” the report read. “The company does not have viewpoint protection for its employees. Regions Financial has donated to the National Urban League and is a member of the CEO Action for Racial Equity Fellowship Program. For these reasons, Regions Financial receives a ‘Medium Risk’ rating.”
Regions 1792 Exchange Report by Hank Hill on Scribd
Several popular tech companies like Google, Amazon, Apple and HP were given "high risk" ratings. Several other popular companies like Airbnb, Adobe, Allstate, AT&T, Ben & Jerry's, Bank of America, Coca-Cola, Disney and Blackrock also received "high risk" scores.
Popular "low risk" companies included Academy Sports, Aflac, Carvana, Chime, Costco, DISH Network, Dillard's, DuckDuckGo and more.
To connect with this story's author or comment, email will.blakely@1819news.com or find him on Twitter and Facebook.
Don't miss out! Subscribe to our newsletter and get our top stories every weekday morning.
