DEI And Anti-DEI Proposals In 2025 – And The Outlook For 2026

An April 14 report from the Conference Board (where most Russell 3000 companies had already filed 2025 proxy materials) showed a precipitous drop in Pro-DEI proposals – no big surprise in today’s environment – and a foretaste of what’s to come in 2026 we feel certain.

• “Shareholder proposals promoting or advancing DEI initiatives peaked in 2021. From 2021 to 2024, the number of pro-DEI proposals filed annually plummeted from 102 to 57. As of April 1, 18 pro-DEI proposals have been filed.
• “Support for proposals in favor of corporate DEI initiatives has dropped in recent years. From 2021 to 2024, support for such proposals fell from 36% to 22%. This trend is expected to continue in 2025” (which it did) “and reflects a broader decline in support for environmental and social proposals.” We expect this downward trend – both in numbers of proposals and in support for them – to continue into 2026.
• “Proposals against DEI initiatives surged in recent years—and will likely reach record levels in 2025” (they did) “From 2021 to 2024, the number of anti-DEI proposals filed annually grew from 1to 17” – and so far in 2025 there have been 122 Anti-DEI proposals. As noted, we expect a big drop in 2026, since clearly, there is no real interest here among regular voters…
• “Despite growing public attention around Anti-DEI proposals, they continue to receive minimal support. Support for such proposals was less than 2% on average in 2024. As of April 1, support for proposals voted on ranged from 0.8% to 2.3%” - and so far, no Anti-DEI proposal has achieved the 3% threshold for re-submission as far as we know.

While this is an excellent report on current developments, we strongly disagree with much of the Commentary, to wit:
“Just a few years ago, companies and proponents were more willing to engage on DEI proposals.” (Demonstrably not true, we say, although, indeed, there were many more of them back then as the numbers show.) Today, reaching agreements poses a bigger challenge - particularly as some proponents’ requests have become more prescriptive or disruptive,” said Ariane Marchis-Mouren, Senior Researcher at The Conference Board and coauthor of the report. (Also not correct, we say – except, that is, for the rabid partisans behind Anti-ESG proposals who are not at all interested in “engagement.”)

“Shareholder support for DEI proposals has been dropping over the past few years. This is partly because boards are generally more diverse and disclosures have improved, but also due to the perception of greater risk associated with diversity commitments” (true). As a result, both negotiated withdrawals and majority approvals are becoming rarer,” said Richard Fields, head of the Board Effectiveness Practice at Russell Reynolds Associates.” (Yes, they are becoming “rarer” but that is because so much progress has been made to date. If anything, the pressure to negotiate in good faith has increased, where ‘reasonable people’ are concerned – and we believe that both sides will be much more receptive to achieving a good resolution than usual. We’ll soon see.)