American Airlines Group Inc | Advisory vote on ending participation in the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index at American Airlines Group Inc

Status
Filed
AGM date
Previous AGM date
Proposal number
5
Resolution details
Company ticker
AAL:US
Lead filer
National Center for Public Policy
Resolution ask
Adopt or amend a policy
ESG theme
  • Social
ESG sub-theme
  • Human rights
Type of vote
Shareholder proposal
Filer type
Shareholder
Company sector
Industrials
Company HQ country
United States
Resolved clause
Shareholders request that the Board consider ending the Company’s participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index.
Supporting statement
American Airlines received a perfect score of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign (HRC)’s Corporate Equality Index (CEI),1 which can only be attained by abiding by its hyper-partisan, divisive and increasingly radical criteria.2

Though HRC claims the CEI is just a “benchmarking tool on corporate policies… pertinent to LGBTQ employees,”3 in reality, it functions like a social credit score for corporations. The threat of a bad score is wielded by HRC against corporations to force them to do the political bidding of radical LGBTQ activists, which seek to sow gender confusion in children, encourage the permanent surgical procedures of confused teens, effectively eliminate girls’ and women’s sports and bathrooms, and roll back longstanding religious liberties.

Receiving a perfect or high score on the CEI can only mean that American Airlines—which has paid platinum partnership with HRC4—is spending shareholder assets to espouse and fund such partisan and

divisive positions. This—in addition to adopting a number of other partisan policies—caused American Airlines to be rated as a “high risk” investment, according to 1792 Exchange’s Corporate Bias Ratings.5

Recent events have made clear that shareholder value drops when companies engage in overtly divisive activism of the sort that the CEI demands. Following Bud Light’s embrace of such partisanship, its revenue fell $395 million in North America compared to a year prior.6 Target’s market cap fell over $15 billion amid backlash for similar actions.7 Disney stock fell 44 percent in 2022—its worst performance in nearly 50 years—for putting divisive agendas ahead of parental rights.8 And Planet Fitness’ valuation dropped by $400 million in just five day for a similar controversy.9

Some companies have responded to these risks accordingly: Lowe’s, Ford, Harley Davidson, Jack Daniels, Tractor Supply and Walmart all ended their CEI participation.10

Out of its fiduciary duty to protect shareholders from value-destroying risks, American Airlines should end its participation in the CEI as well.

DISCLAIMER: By including a shareholder resolution or management proposal in this database, neither the PRI nor the sponsor of the resolution or proposal is seeking authority to act as proxy for any shareholder; shareholders should vote their proxies in accordance with their own policies and requirements.

Any voting recommendations set forth in the descriptions of the resolutions and management proposals included in this database are made by the sponsors of those resolutions and proposals, and do not represent the views of the PRI.

Information on the shareholder resolutions, management proposals and votes in this database have been obtained from sources that are believed to be reliable, but the PRI does not represent that it is accurate, complete, or up-to-date, including information relating to resolutions and management proposals, other signatories’ vote pre-declarations (including voting rationales), or the current status of a resolution or proposal. You should consult companies’ proxy statements for complete information on all matters to be voted on at a meeting.