Helen of Troy - 1792 Exchange

Rating Overview

Helen of Troy is Medium Risk.

Helen of Troy is Medium Risk. The company often yields to political activism in shaping corporate governance, potentially alienating consumers, dividing employees, and harming shareholders. The company implements race and identity-based policies that replace merit, excellence, and integrity with preferential treatment and outcomes. The company occasionally embraces corporate initiatives that redirect its central focus from business goals to partisan policies and divisive issues at times. This approach fails to safeguard free exercise, free speech, and free enterprise.

Rating Criteria

Corporate Weaponization Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Cancellations	Medium Risk
Discriminatory Philanthropy	Medium Risk
Employment Protection	High Risk

Corporate Weaponization ⓘ

Corporate Governance and Public Policy Risk Levels
Criteria	Risk Level
Advocacy Bias	High Risk
Funding	Medium Risk
Political Actions	No Data

Corporate Governance and Public Policy ⓘ

Rating Criteria Detail

Criteria Risk Level Rationale

Corporate Weaponization

Criteria:

Has canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors due to their political views or religious beliefs OR corporately boycotts, divests, or sanctions regions, people groups, or industries.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Helen of Troy integrates ESG into its business practices. From its ESG guiding principals: “Our Board of Directors, through the Corporate Governance Committee, oversees ESG-related matters and its implementation (includes environment, climate change, human rights and diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging)” (1)(2)(3). However, the company has not canceled customers, suppliers, or vendors based on political views or religious beliefs (4).

Criteria:

Charitable giving (including employee matching programs) policies or practices discriminate against charitable organizations based on views or religious beliefs.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Helen of Troy likely uses Benevity as its charitable giving platform. Benevity vets charities according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hate List, which includes mainstream libertarian, conservative, family, and religious advocacy organizations (1) (2) (3). Helen of Troy’s employee matching guidelines require that organizations abide by its “DEI causes”, including on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, thereby excluding some religious charities (4).

Criteria:

Employment policies fail to protect against viewpoint or other discrimination and/or are ideological in nature.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Helen of Troy requires its employees to take unconscious bias training (1). Helen of Troy appears to prioritize diversity over merit in its leadership composition. From its 2026 Proxy Statement: “Our Nominating Committee charter provides that the Nominating Committee will seek to include candidates who reflect diverse backgrounds, qualifications and personal characteristics, including gender, race, ethnicity and age. The Nominating Committee considers all attributes, business diversity, professional qualifications, and experience of all candidates it believes will benefit the Company and increase shareholder value. The Nominating Committee does not assign specific weight to particular criteria, and no particular criterion is necessarily applicable to all prospective nominees. The Company will continue to take the appropriate steps to ensure the Board has the mix of qualifications, skill sets and diversity necessary to promote the long-term interests of the Company’s shareholders” (2). The company does not provide viewpoint protections for its employees (3)(4).

Corporate Governance and Public Policy

Criteria:

Uses corporate reputation to support causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

High

Rationale:

Helen of Troy supports DEI and ESG within its business practices. From its 2024 Annual Report: “We will also continue to advance our DEI&B efforts as part of our ESG initiatives…” (1). From its 2024 Proxy Statement: “We are…committed to not only responding to the evolving needs of our key stakeholder groups, but also to strategically addressing our environmental and social impacts” (2). In 2025, the company rebranded its DEIefforts as Inclusion; however, it remains unclear whether the underlying divisive corporate policies/practices materially changed following the rebrand (3).

Criteria:

Uses corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies hostile to freedom of expression.

Risk Level:

Medium

Rationale:

Helen of Troy was a Silver Tier corporate sponsor of the Trevor Project, an organization that advocates for controversial sex and gender ideology, including “gender transition” drugs and surgeries for minors, through legislation, litigation, advertising, and PR campaigns. The organization also hosts online chatrooms that allow adults to communicate with minors as young as 13 about sexually explicit topics. Adults in these chatrooms have encouraged minors to adopt transgender identities and withhold this information from their parents (1)(2)(3)(4)(5). The company donated $75,000 to The Trevor Project (6). Otherwise, there are no publicly known cases of Helen of Troy using corporate funds to advance ideological causes, organizations, or policies (7).

Criteria:

Uses corporate political actions and/or financial contributions for ideological, non-business purposes.

Risk Level:

N/A

Rationale:

Helen of Troy does not operate a PAC or engage in lobbying at this time (1)(2)(3).