28 Apr 2021 Cigna Challenged Over Support for Equality Act and Racist Trainings

Free Enterprise Project Calls out Cigna’s Board for Lack of Diverse Viewpoints

Washington, D.C. – The Free Enterprise Project (FEP) took Cigna’s board of directors to task today over the company’s support for legislation that would dismantle female sports and religious freedom, and for forcing its workforce to undergo sexist and racist workplace trainings.

Justin Danhof, Esq.

These public-facing actions were highlighted during Cigna’s annual shareholder meeting as the rationale behind an FEP shareholder resolution that sought to add true diversity to the company’s board of directors – in other words, viewpoint diversity. Justin Danhof, Esq., who serves as FEP Director and General Counsel at the National Center for Public Policy Research, specifically questioned the company’s support for the Equality Act and for its employee trainings that are steeped in critical race theory.

“Any company that supports the ill-named Equality Act and runs critical race theory trainings for its staff clearly lacks any semblance of political balance at the top,” said Danhof after the meeting. “The Equality Act would end women’s sports as we know it and cancel religious freedom, while so-called antiracism theory is perhaps the most insane public policy considered in the past five decades. Any board that wasn’t comprised of 100-percent radical far-left individuals would push back on such insanity. It’s clear there is no diversity of thought allowed in the Cigna boardroom.”

At the meeting, Danhof outlined his concerns about the Equality Act:

This legislation would devastate women’s sports. Did a single board member step up and ask why the company supports the destruction of women’s and girls’ sports in America? The evidence is here in your own backyard, in Connecticut, where two biological males regularly crush their female counterparts in high school track events. The Equality Act would extend this insanity nationwide. Do the women who work here, or employees with daughters for that matter, stand by Cigna’s stance that women’s sports should be eviscerated?

And the Equality Act would harm more than female athletics. It would cancel religious freedom. Full stop. Which board member stood up and asked why the company wants to cancel religious freedom? Did anyone have the courage, or do none of you care? I am not sure which of those is worse.

Here is Danhof’s full statement. Here is a clip of Justin reading the comments he made to Cigna’s board and shareholders today.

“Cigna’s board members need to take a deep look inside. The company they supposedly represent is advancing truly radical policies that tear at America’s cultural fibers. Surely some of them know better, and it is incumbent upon them to speak up. Corporate America deserves better leadership than what Cigna is providing,” said Danhof.

Conservative investors can learn how to oppose leftism in corporate America by downloading FEP’s new 2021 Investor Value Voter Guide. The new website Stop Corporate Tyranny also provides tools for engagement with corporate leaders.

Today’s meeting marks the 10th time FEP has participated in a shareholder meeting in 2021. To schedule an interview with a member of the Free Enterprise Project on this or other issues, contact Judy Kent at (703) 477-7476.

Launched in 2007, the National Center’s Free Enterprise Project focuses on shareholder activism and the confluence of big government and big business. Over the past four years alone, FEP representatives have participated in over 100 shareholder meetings – advancing free-market ideals about health care, energy, taxes, subsidies, regulations, religious freedom, food policies, media bias, gun rights, workers’ rights and other important public policy issues. As the leading voice for conservative-minded investors, it annually files more than 90 percent of all right-of-center shareholder resolutions. Dozens of liberal organizations, however, annually file more than 95 percent of all policy-oriented shareholder resolutions and continue to exert undue influence over corporate America.

FEP activity has been covered by media outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Variety, the Associated Press, Bloomberg, Drudge Report, Business Insider, National Public Radio and SiriusXM. FEP’s work is prominently featured in Stephen Soukup’s new book The Dictatorship of Woke Capital: How Political Correctness Captured Big Business (Encounter Books) and Kimberley Strassel’s 2016 book The Intimidation Game: How the Left is Silencing Free Speech (Hachette Book Group).

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.

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