I was invited to present for three minutes on DEI at today's Boeing shareholder meeting, which is obviously very exciting. You can hear my full but brief testimony here! pic.twitter.com/r7ivvVrNFP
— James Lindsay, full varsity (@ConceptualJames) May 17, 2024
00:15. Hello, I'm here to encourage you to support Proposal 7 regarding a DEI risk report. I hope to clarify DEI in its related programs for you today. Words like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion have specialist meanings, not just their everyday meanings. Diversity means diverse to existing standards and values which in a corporate setting can mean diverse as opposed to a standard of merit and competence in hiring and promotion. It can also refer to implementing activist programs that are off-mission of corporations. Inclusion means rearranging a work environment to accommodate that diversity and its politics. Equity means redistributing shares to make groups more equal. Sustainability is also a political program with a specialist meaning. These are not Boeing's missions. They are scams. Boeing's mission is to manufacture safe, reliable, technologically superior aircraft. Boeing prioritizes DEI, though perhaps illegally. Evidence is provided in a proposal report and it's explicit in this year's SCC filing, which indicates that Boeing hit DEI targets and climate targets, but missed quality and production targets. People are noticing. DEI and ESG are not only legally risky and bad PR, but they also divert scarce resources away from Boeing's core mission in terms of production, safety, and quality. Every dollar spent on these programs takes away from Boeing's mission and shareholder returns, and shareholders are right to question the fiduciary responsibility of these decisions. These programs may be being implemented to check boxes and miss understanding as to what they are or do ideological drivers. And previous SEC filings indicate executive compensation depends on them, specifically the G part of any ESG score can be increased by tying executive compensation to implementing ESG, which previous SEC filings have happened at Boeing. This indicates the kind of naked corruption shareholders have a right to be concerned about, especially given the poor performance of ESG and DEI in making companies profitable. I'm not here to accuse anyone though; in fact, I suspect Boeing is under tremendous pressure from large institutional investment firms on this issue, and executives' hands may be tied. Still, DEI and ESG represent a rapidly growing risk of discrimination and fiduciary responsibility lawsuits they divert scarce resources away from Boeing's mission to build the best and safest aircraft in the world as a lifelong lover of aviation myself and a frequent passenger in Boeing jet I believe bowling represents the pinnacle of American manufacturing so I hope to see leadership make good decisions going forward including by supporting proposals 7
DEI and ESG [DEI is the S in ESG]
