Resolved clauseRESOLVED: Shareholders request the Board of Directors prepare a report to shareholders analyzing whether written policies or unwritten norms at Digital Realty Trust reinforce racism in company culture and including any planned remedies.
Whereas clause"WHEREAS:
According to the “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)” website for Digital Realty Trust (the “Company”), the Company aims to “build a place where everyone feels included and sees opportunities to build their careers, regardless of who they are” and that in 2020 the company launched a DEI council to create a more inclusive company;
However, the Company’s diversity data paint a concerning picture. According to the Company’s 2021 EEO-1 report, 93% of executive level officials are white and 86% of those officials are specifically white men. Zero are Black or Hispanic. Of the next four tiers of employees – managers, professionals, technicians, and sales staff – white men make up 60-70% of three of the four categories;
This ignites questions about whether the lack of leadership diversity indicates a systemic challenge at the company;
Author Ibram X. Kendi explains: “every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity…” existing both in “written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines that govern people”[1];
Harvard Business Review explains: “[c]ompanies must confront racism at a systemic level – addressing everything from the structural and social mechanics of their own organizations to the role they play in the economy at large”[2];
Corporate culture can include “values, norms, conventions, shared beliefs, customs, traditions, symbols, rituals, knowledge, ideology, identities, and shared mental models.”[3] We believe that long-term value creation could be advanced through analysis of whether and how systemic racism is embedded in company written and unwritten policies, corporate culture, and norms."
Supporting statement"SUPPORTING STATEMENT: The report should be prepared within one year of the annual meeting, at reasonable cost and excluding proprietary and privileged information. For its analysis, the board is encouraged to consider soliciting outside expertise on racism in corporate cultures in conjunction with eliciting feedback from employees through forms of communication such as focus groups or anonymous employee surveying on indicators of structural racism and its effects. In its discretion, the board may include assessment of whether company policies or unwritten norms:
Yield inequitable outcomes for employees based on race or ethnicity such as patterns of hiring, retention, upward mobility, disciplinary action, allocation of “stretch assignments” (projects intended to develop employee skills and abilities), sponsorship, or usage of benefits;Consider “cultural fit” rather than merit and capabilities or create “prove it again” biases (wherein employees of color are forced to prove their capabilities repeatedly);Establish a cultural hierarchy through permitting racial microaggressions (behaviors that stereotype or belittle a minority group), create perceived pressure to code-switch (behavioral adjustments used to navigate interracial interactions), or otherwise suppress cultural identity.[1] https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/june/ibram-x-kendi-definition-of-antiracist.html
[2] https://hbr.org/2020/06/confronting-racism-at-work-a-reading-list
[3] https://ssrn.com/abstract=3946604"