Why Is American Express Blocking An Audit Of Its Race-Based Staff Training?By: Justin Danhof
January 17, 2022
American Express pledged a whopping $1 billion to advance “social justice,” yet the company is trying to hide some of those supposed racial justice efforts from the light of day.
Recently, the company’s top lawyer petitioned the federal government seeking its permission to block the contents of American Express’s race-based employee training programs, among other racial initiatives, from public view. The feds should not abide the charge card giant’s attempted obfuscation.
The American Express legal request came after we at the Free Enterprise Project filed a shareholder resolution asking the company to conduct a racial-equity audit, including of its race-based employee trainings, and to issue a report on its findings.
American Express argues that shareholders don’t have a right to view these materials. It asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for permission to remove our proposal from its annual proxy statement. If its lawyers prevail, AmEx will disenfranchise its investors by denying them the right to vote on our resolution.
But if the company’s racial trainings are noble and worthy of its employees’ time, why would American Express seek to block its shareholders from viewing and evaluating them? Surely if the company thinks its materials are helping with the “task of overcoming our country’s racist heritage,” as one of its leaked training materials states, then it would want those lessons shared near and far. Perhaps the charge card company’s protestations mean that what is known about these re-education programs are only the tip of the iceberg — and what is known is damning.
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Source:
https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/17/why-is-american-express-blocking-an-audit-of-its-race-based-staff-training/
