SUPPORTING STATEMENT: Capital One (the “Company”) employs more than 50,000 people. It should respect its employees’ speech rights and religious freedom. Company legally must comply with many laws prohibiting discrimination against employees on many grounds, including religion and sometimes political affiliation.

Respecting diverse views allows Company to attract the most qualified talent, promote a healthy and innovative business culture, and contribute to a healthy economic market and marketplace of ideas.

Despite this, the Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index (2023)1 found 91% of scored companies promote divisive training concepts like critical race theory (CRT) that replace rich cultural and ideological diversity with a monolithic focus on group identity. Capital One goes further, from training to practice. It appears to inject the illegal considerations of race and sex into every supplier-recruitment decision, and to offer training programs and growth opportunities exclusively to race, sex and orientation groups it favors, thus discriminating against “non- diverse” suppliers.1 And despite the fact that Capital One actively discriminates against disfavored “non-diverse” people such as whites, men and straight people, none of those groups is represented by any “business resource groups,” while favored, “diverse” groups to whose benefit Company’s discrimination runs have a series of surface-characteristic-based lobbying groups.2 This speaks to systemic discrimination at Capital One against the “non-diverse.”

Many companies also alienate their own employees by taking divisive stances on political and social issues. The 2023 Index found 78% of scored companies discriminated against religious nonprofits in company programs, and 63% supported legislation undermining fundamental First Amendment freedoms. Capital One fully engages in these misdeeds, reliably using shareholder assets to further our Company’s executives’ personal policy preferences.3
Companies’ potential liability for discrimination was sharpened by the recent Supreme Court decisions in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard and Groff v DeJoy. The Company must act now to assess and correct potential shortcomings.

Corporations have recently lost such actions, paying $10 to $25 million in damages, plus litigation costs. The risk of these suits is rising. With more than 50,000 employees, the Company likely has 35,000+ potentially discriminated against because they are white, Asian, male, or straight. If only ten percent of them sue, and only ten percent of those win, Company losses would run to the billions. And while racial equity audits can cost up to $4 million, this report should cost much less, as it need review only the discriminatory programs — unless Capital One so embraces suspect discrimination that its whole operation need be reviewed.