1792 Insights
The 1792 Exchange is committed to delivering sharp, data-driven analysis of corporate America’s political entanglements. Discover what investors, executives, and concerned citizens should know regarding why businesses should return to neutral, mission-focused operations.
Corporate America’s Gender Ideology Ally Has A 99% Democratic Endorsement Record
As Americans prepare to vote in November’s midterm elections, one of the Democratic Party’s most reliable political allies is mobilizing millions of voters and spending millions of dollars to influence the results. That organization is the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which also happens to maintain close ties with some of America’s largest corporations, many of which publicly affiliate with and sponsor the organization. HRC bills itself as the nation’s largest advocacy organization dedicated to advancing LGBTQ equality. But a new analysis by 1792 Exchange reveals just how overwhelmingly partisan its political activities have become. After examining HRC’s online archive of press releases, 1792 Exchange documented 1,408 political endorsements covering 970 unique candidates between 2010 and October 2026. Of those 970 candidates, 964 were Democrats, two were Republicans, three were nonpartisan candidates and one was an independent. In other words, more than 99% of the unique candidates identified in HRC’s archived endorsements were Democrats. This record raises questions for companies that financially support HRC or affiliate with its infamous Corporate Equality Index under the banner of supporting nondiscrimination policies, particularly when they do not extend comparable affiliation with or support of conservative organizations. And HRC’s political operation is not slowing down …
Berkeley set out to defend DEI — and found no financial upside
A new study meant to reassure corporations about diversity, equity, and inclusion programs has delivered an awkward finding for DEI advocates: Keeping the programs produced no measurable financial advantage over abandoning them. Researchers at the University of California in Berkeley compared S&P 500 companies that maintained DEI after President Trump’s January 2025 executive order with companies that scaled back their commitments. Firms that kept their programs performed about as well in stock returns and revenue as those that retreated. The authors and sympathetic news coverage emphasized the other half of that result: Companies could keep DEI without suffering a significant financial penalty. CBS News framed the finding that way, as did a subsequent Forbes analysis. But the conclusion cuts both ways. If companies paid no price for keeping DEI, they also paid no price for dropping it. For investors, that raises a straightforward question: Where is the financial return from DEI? The full article can be read in The Blaze.
Corporate Gender Ideology Has Borders After All
“Pride has no borders.” That was the slogan. Then the map showed up. In June 2022, Amazon told American consumers it was going to “Pride Out Loud.” The same month, Amazon.ae hid more than 150 search terms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — among them “LGBTQ,” “Pride,” and “transgender flag.” Even so, the company said it remained committed to the cause. The usual defense writes itself: different markets, different audiences, different campaigns. That is what the marketing department says when it wants credit for a conviction it can’t carry through customs. Ordinary localization changes a menu, clothing colors, or a commercial. The difference is that these companies are changing the moral script they demand that American employees, customers and shareholders treat as non-negotiable. In the U.S. the script is a cause. In the Gulf, it is a liability. A cause you will not own anywhere on the map is not a cause. It is a costume. The pattern is not subtle. And Amazon is not a one-off. The full article can be read in Daily Caller.
Accenture said it ditched DEI. The DOJ just caught them running secret race scorecards
Color-coded monthly dashboards. Separate promotion conversations for candidates who moved demographic numbers in the “right” direction. Leadership programs with the door closed to the “wrong” race or sex. These are just a few of the flashing indicators that companies who should have known better had nonetheless embraced illegal employment practices. The avoidable result was the payment of huge fines. IBM paid $17 million. Deloitte paid $21.5 million. Now Accenture agreed to pay $25 million to resolve Justice Department allegations that it did the same things, while certifying it did not in order to continue its collection of big bucks from taxpayers. Three of the largest consulting firms — companies selling “expert” advice to government and Fortune 500 clients on workplace “transformation” — have written checks totaling $63.5 million in a single year under the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative. That’s a pattern. And a problem. The DOJ alleged that since 2017, Accenture Federal Services treated race and sex as factors in hiring and promotions to hit “stealth” workforce composition goals. Business-unit leaders received monthly summaries of the exact percentage of each race and sex in their units, highlighted to show if they were on target. Those scorecards drove improper hiring decisions, …
Your Company’s Charity List May Have a Political Screen Built in
Millions of workers in America donate to charities through giving portals set up by their employers, confident that a full range of legitimate nonprofits is just a few clicks away. But this trust, unfortunately, is often misplaced. Many companies turn to third-party platforms such as Benevity, Bonterra and Groundswell to operate their charitable-giving programs. Benevity is the largest of these, processing billions of dollars in donations annually. Though it does not publish a full list of its clients, research by my organization, 1792 Exchange, has identified more than 200 Fortune 1000 companies with Benevity portals, representing millions of employees. Part of the appeal of these services is that experts have done the vetting work. So employees who use them to make donations reasonably assume that if a charity is excluded, it failed some objective test of legal compliance, financial transparency or organizational integrity. In the case of Benevity, however, that assumption is often incorrect. And the problem is not that companies outsource the work of vetting nonprofits to Benevity. The problem is in the process used to decide which organizations to include and which to leave out. The full article can be found in The Washington Post.
The Founders Built a Business Charter: The U.S. Constitution
On September 17, 1787, 39 men signed a document we celebrate as the world’s most successful and enduring political charter. In our nation’s 250th year, it is worth remembering that the Constitution is not only a charter of limited government and ordered liberty; it is also the greatest business charter ever written. No governing charter has done more to create the conditions in which enterprise can flourish: stable laws, secure property, enforceable contracts, free exchange, individual liberty, and protection from arbitrary power. The men who gathered in Philadelphia knew commerce under the “old system.” They lived as colonists in a mercantilist empire where the right to trade was a favor dispensed by the Crown, where charters went to the well-connected, and where a merchant’s property and contracts were secure only so long as he stayed in the government’s good graces. When they wrote a new charter, they were determined that American commerce would rest on a solid foundation of law, not on the shifting sands of political favor. Consider what they built. The Commerce Clause, with related provisions, created a continental free-trade zone. The Constitution transformed 13 competing states into a vast common market. It gave Congress authority over interstate commerce and …