JPMorgan Chase must let its shareholders consider and vote on a proposal aimed at ensuring equal treatment of the bank’s customers regardless of their political or religious beliefs, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent ruling.
The proposal was submitted by David Bahnsen, chief investment officer and managing partner of The Bahnsen Group, a private wealth management firm that oversees over $4bn of client assets. As a shareholder of JPMorgan Chase, Bahnsen exercised his right to propose a resolution insisting the bank’s board of directors to audit its discrimination policies, particularly those relating to political and religious beliefs. Bahnsen explained that the proposal was made in response to recent allegations that ‘the company has been “debanking” customers because of their political and religious leanings’, especially when those leanings happen to be conservative or Christian.
JPMorgan Chase attempted to remove Bahnsen’s proposal from its proxy ballot for its upcoming annual shareholder meeting on May 16, claiming that the proposal was related to routine business matters. But with the assistance of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Boyden Gray & Associates, Bahnsen successfully convinced the SEC that this issue pertains to civil rights and broader social concerns that could affect the bank’s reputation. Consequently, the SEC sided with Bahnsen and ruled that the proposal should be included in the upcoming meeting.
ADF reports that the SEC ruling comes amid allegations that Chase has cancelled or denied payments to accounts associated with individuals and organisations that hold conservative values, including the National Committee for Religious Freedom, founded by former governor and senator Sam Brownback, the Arkansas Family Council, and Defense of Liberty.
And it appears that this is part of a wider and concerning trend of politicised debanking in the financial sector. Fundraising site GoFundMe has been in the spotlight for cancelling fundraising campaign for Australian rugby player Israel Folau, who was raising support for his legal action after being sacked for his religious comments on social media, and taking down the donation page for the Canadian ‘freedom convoy’ during their protest against draconian Covid mandates. Donor-advised funds have also been pressured to violate donor anonymity for charities labelled as ‘hate groups’ by leftist activists.
Scoring Corporate Viewpoint Diversity
Bahnsen’s proposal cited ADF’s Viewpoint Diversity Score, which measures and evaluates corporate respect for stakeholders’ religious and political beliefs by leading American companies in their business dealings. According to its 2022 Business Index, JPMorgan Chase scored just 15 per cent overall, in other words, a big ‘F’ in respecting the diverse views of its customers, employees, and shareholders. The proposal calls on Chase leadership to be transparent about their decision-making process regarding the customers they choose to do business with. It also calls on the bank to adopt polices recommended by ADF’s Viewpoint Diversity Score in place of terms-of-use policies that include vague and subjective terms like ‘hate speech’ or ‘intolerance’ which allow companies wide discretion to discriminate against customers for their views.
Corporations have long been capitulating to left-wing activists’ demands to implement so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ framework across their businesses. Far from promoting diversity, DEI policies have led to increasing intolerance and censorship of views contrary to the ideological left in the workplace and marketplace. But rather than retreating from the corporate world, people like David Bahnsen and the lawyers at ADF show how shareholder activism can be done constructively to advocate for essential civic freedoms, and thereby advance true diversity and inclusion in corporate America.
