Sam Bankman-Fried Becomes an ESG Truth-Teller

SVB Gave $74 Million to Black Lives Matter. It Explains a Lot About the Bank’s Collapse

SVB Exposes ‘Lazy’ ESG Funds as Hundreds Bet on Doomed Bank

SVB Doesn’t Deserve a Taxpayer Bailout

Faith-based investors should act like owners

Earlier this summer, the rating service Morningstar released its second-ever report on faith-based investing, a market that has grown to roughly $169 billion in assets. The report analyzes hundreds of faith-based funds, comparing their screening methodologies and how those screens affect portfolio construction and performance. The report offers valuable insight into a complex and rapidly growing segment of the investment industry, but it overlooks several important aspects of the broader faith-based investing landscape. ​​For starters, the universe of investors making decisions based on values is much broader than the funds formally labeled “faith-based” because no investment strategy is truly values-neutral. Every fund makes choices about which companies and industries to include, which to exclude, and how heavily to weight them. Even a broad-market index reflects a set of rules determining what qualifies for inclusion and how much representation each company receives within the portfolio. Every investor has some worldview or set of values that informs how he or she lives. Faith-based investing simply makes the connection between those values and investment decisions more explicit and, hopefully, more consistent. Investors who fall outside the Islamic, Catholic, and Christian categories examined by Morningstar may still make investment decisions based on deeply held beliefs about …

Two DEI Settlements, One Clear Warning for Federal Contractors

As the saying goes, “To be forewarned is to be forearmed.” American companies doing business with the federal government have once again been forewarned about the risks of engaging in DEI practices. To ignore these warnings can be very costly for the company, its shareholders, and employees.  Just four months ago, IBM paid more than $17 million to resolve allegations that it maintained illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion practices while performing federal contract work. That settlement was the first resolution under the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Fraud Initiative. It was also a clear warning. Last week, President Donald Trump’s DOJ announced that another top federal contractor has agreed to pay $21.5 million to settle similar allegations. The Justice Department alleged that Deloitte violated the False Claims Act by certifying compliance with federal nondiscrimination rules while applying race and sex preferences in hiring, promotions, and staffing. Business units tracked “demographic goals” with color-coded scorecards, and roughly 150 of the firm’s most senior leaders were evaluated, and in some cases compensated, based in part on progress toward those targets.  The government further alleged that promotion classes for partners were assigned racial and sex targets, that staffing for federal contracts was managed with a priority toward demographic parity …

The DOJ Is Suing Over Secret “Gender Transitions” in Schools. The HRCF and Its Corporate Backers Helped Pave the Way

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF) has spent years pushing gender ideology into our nation’s K-12 schools through its Welcoming Schools initiative. Marketed under the guise of “bullying prevention,” this HRCF flagship program supplies LGBTQ+ resources and trainings to educators and school boards. According to the HRCF’s 2026 Annual Report, more than 30,000 educators participated in Welcoming Schools training last year. Given the program’s unparalleled reach, it should come as little surprise that HRCF’s influence can be seen in the policies now at the center of the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools (KCKPS).  On September 1, 2026, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas sued KCKPS “to stop the district from facilitating secret ‘gender transition’ for children at school without their parents’ knowledge or consent.” The department’s complaint points to KCKPS’s transgender guidelines, which chart a course for staff to help students “transition” without the parents’ involvement. The HRCF has historically supported such guidance. Its Welcoming Schools resources are riddled with suggestive language hinting at exceptions to informing parents about their child’s sexuality. The organization uses a student’s “right to privacy” as justification. As evidence of this stance, the HRC has condemned school districts on the basis of “student privacy,” including the Carson City School District, which recently enacted new policies requiring school faculty to inform parents …