Human Rights Campaign

The Human Rights Campaign is the largest LGBTQ advocacy organization in the United States. While the name sounds innocuous, HRC operates as an activist group that works to reshape corporate America’s policies and practices around progressive gender ideology. Its primary tool for influencing companies is the Corporate Equality Index, administered by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF).

The CEI is HRC’s annual scorecard that rates major U.S. companies on their alignment with HRC’s policy demands. Companies submit their internal policies for grading, and a score of 100 signals full compliance with HRC’s agenda. In practice, the index functions less like a voluntary survey and more like a social credit system, rewarding companies that adopt HRC’s preferred positions and pressuring those that do not.

The Corporate Equality Index (CEI) pushes corporations to prioritize progressive activism over its core business and ahead of its shareholders, customers, and employees. Furthermore, its requirements cause real harm. Most notably, the CEI has pressured companies into covering gender transition drugs and surgeries for the minor dependents of employees. Corporations should not be funding experimental medical procedures on children through family health plans. Companies serve everyone best when they focus on business.

1792 Exchange’s research identifies several distinct risks for companies that sponsor HRC or the HRC Foundation.

Partisan alignment
HRC is a 501(c)(4) whose endorsements and affiliated PAC overwhelmingly back Democratic candidates, so corporate support can be read as political side-taking, especially when it is not balanced by comparable support for organizations promoting conservative or traditional values.

Controversial policy advocacy
HRC’s positions extend well beyond traditional nondiscrimination into highly contested debates over transgender healthcare, sports participation, and access to sex-based facilities.

Reputational and stakeholder risk
Activist campaigns, shareholder criticism, and media coverage tie sponsors to HRC’s positions. As seen with Bud Light and Target, association with contested initiatives can contribute to sales declines, brand damage, and consumer backlash.

Governance and confidentiality risk
Participation in the CEI requires companies to submit non-public information for outside review, which lets an external advocacy organization influence internal governance decisions.

Legal and regulatory risk
Recent executive orders and Department of Justice guidance addressing DEI and unlawful discrimination have raised the stakes, particularly for federal contractors. HRC’s own 2026 report acknowledged that many companies leaving the CEI are federal contractors.

Market and peer risk
Participation is falling fast, so continued involvement increasingly positions a company as an outlier and invites greater scrutiny from shareholders.

Three things: drop activist scorecards like the CEI, institute clear protections for minors in employee health plans, and adopt durable policies that keep the company neutral on ideological issues. Charles Schwab and Walmart have already established explicit carve-outs prohibiting coverage of gender-transition interventions for minors, proving that if the world’s largest private employer can do it, any company can. 1792 Exchange can equip companies with model language others have used to update their policies.

.

1792 Exchange maintains public databases, including our Corporate Bias Ratings and the Back to Business Tracker, which catalog corporate policies and document the concrete changes companies have made to get out of divisive social and political issues and back to business.