Is the National Center’s Anti-DEI Proposal Already Having an Impact at Dick’s?

Washington, D.C. — When shareholder activists with the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project (FEP) present a proposal at this week’s annual shareholder meeting of Dick’s Sporting Goods, they will question whether Dick’s is in fact already changing course on its Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) policies.

On Wednesday, FEP will present a shareholder proposal (Item 5) requesting that the Dick’s Sporting Goods board compile a report on the potential risks involved with maintaining Dick’s affirmative action goals.

When researching and submitting this proposal earlier this year, FEP highlighted several examples of discriminatory practices that were discussed openly on the Dick’s website. Interestingly, many of these now appear to have been removed from the site.

Stefan Padfield

“To the best of our knowledge, at least some of the brazen examples of discrimination set forth in our proposal are no longer viewable,” FEP Executive Director Stefan Padfield will tell shareholders Wednesday. “To the extent that is correct, one would be forgiven for concluding that our proposal has already had the intended impact to at least some extent. But then why doesn’t Dick’s acknowledge this in its opposition statement? One concern is that these changes are merely cosmetic, making the report we request even more critical for shareholders.”

In the proposal’s supporting statement, FEP outlined why affirmative action and DEI policies are not just immoral but also pose great risk to the company’s bottom line:

Dividing employees and other stakeholders on the basis of race, and then allocating benefits on that basis, may be deemed immoral, illegal, and a breach of duty. With 50,000 employees, Dick’s likely has thousands of employees, job applicants, and other stakeholders who are potentially victims of this type of discrimination. If even only a fraction of them file suit, and only some of those prove successful, the cost to Dick’s could reach billions of dollars. Accordingly, it is imperative that Dick’s take action to assess the risks created by its affirmative action programs.

In addition to asking shareholders to support this proposal, FEP has published a complete voting scorecard for Dick’s shareholders as part of its Proxy Navigator voting guide.

About

The National Center for Public Policy Research, founded in 1982, is a non-partisan, free-market, independent conservative think-tank. Ninety-four percent of its support comes from individuals, less than four percent from foundations and less than two percent from corporations. It receives over 350,000 individual contributions a year from over 60,000 active recent contributors.

FEP, the original and premier opponent of the woke takeover of American corporate life, aims to push corporations to respect their fiduciary obligations and to stay out of political and social engineering. More information about this proposal can be found in FEP’s mobile and web app, ProxyNavigator.

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