Apple's board overwhelmingly backs its diversity and inclusion policies

Apple shareholders support the company's diversity, equality and inclusion policies, known as DEI. The board of directors of the world's largest publicly traded company, held online on Tuesday, overwhelmingly rejected a proposal questioning those policies. Supporters of diversity policies already scored another victory at Costco's board, where 98% of shareholders supported maintaining those practices after a passionate defense by the company's management.

In Apple’s case, the proposal on its board agenda had been put forward by the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative advocacy group. “Shareholders request that the company consider abolishing its inclusion and diversity program, policies, department, and goals,” said the defeated proposal, which cited the risk of discrimination lawsuits from employees and suppliers under those programs. “It is clear that DEI poses litigation, reputational, and financial risks to companies — and therefore financial risks to their shareholders — and therefore further risks to companies for failing to uphold their fiduciary duties,” the National Center for Public Policy Research argued.

Apple’s board recommended voting against the proposal. “The proposal is unnecessary, as Apple already has a well-established compliance program in place and the proposal seeks to inappropriately restrict Apple’s ability to manage its own ordinary business operations, people and equipment, and business strategies; and our board of directors and management maintain active oversight of the legal, regulatory and compliance risks of our global business,” it argued.

“Apple’s approach reflects careful determinations regarding our legal compliance and business practices that require complex analysis, extensive knowledge and understanding of employment and other laws and regulations in multiple jurisdictions, and judgments about the most appropriate policies, programs and means of enforcement to promote compliance and support our team members around the world,” the company argued. “Apple’s determination of the appropriate means to comply with applicable law, including associated changes to our programs, policies, departments or objectives, is a fundamental aspect of Apple’s business operations,” it added.

In its latest diversity and inclusion report, published in 2022, Apple revealed that nearly three-quarters of its global workforce was made up of white (42.9%) and Asian (29.8%) employees. Nearly two-thirds, 64.6%, of its employees were men.

Apple announced Monday that it plans to spend about $500 billion in the United States over the next four years. Only a small portion of that amount will be investments, while the bulk will be ongoing or operating expenses with suppliers, employees and others, but US President Donald Trump presented this as an investment commitment, which is far from being the case. Apple, however, seems to be succeeding in its strategy of presenting its regular spending and investment plans to different presidents as a triumph .

Offensive against diversity

The offensive against diversity and inclusion practices intensified following the US Supreme Court ruling that declared affirmative action based on race in university admissions unconstitutional. In addition, the crusade launched by the Republican Party has led more companies to turn their backs on these policies. President Donald Trump approved two executive orders (some of whose provisions have been provisionally suspended by a judge) that threatened to cancel public contracts and file lawsuits against private companies that applied “illegal” diversity policies, causing legal uncertainty in this regard.

Google's Alphabet Inc. bowed to pressure from Republicans this month and threatened to lose contracts. Earlier, retail leader Walmart Inc., its competitor Target Inc., tech giant Meta Inc., fast-food chain McDonald's Inc. and many other companies including Tractor Supply Inc., John Deere Inc., Ford Inc., Harley-Davidson Inc., Lowe's Inc., Caterpillar Inc. and Molson Coors Inc. have all or partly abandoned these policies. Amazon Inc., founded by Jeff Bezos Inc., has also taken a step back on the issue. Coca-Cola Inc. and PepsiCo Inc. have also put their practices under review.

In its annual report released earlier this month, Alphabet removed a sentence that said: “At Alphabet, we are committed to making diversity, equity and inclusion part of everything we do and growing a workforce that is representative of the people we serve.” The sentence had been repeated every year since the 2020 annual report . In the report from a year ago, the word diversity appeared eight times. In the one published this month, it had disappeared.