Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is partnering with Inspire Investing – a biblically responsible investment firm – for the Viewpoint Diversity Score website and Business Index.
"The index focuses on big tech and financial services companies because they pose the greatest threat to free speech and religious freedom of everyday Americans," explains ADF's Jeremy Tedesco. "They provide essential services and platforms for public debate and dialogue, for banking services, for financial services – things that people need to be able to live their lives."
According to Tedesco, "just a small group of companies have a lot of control" over access to these services and the ability for people to speak on these social media platforms. In fact, the website's 2022 Business Index indicates that close to 90% of policies and practices for the 50 companies scored fail to respect religious and ideological diversity in the workplace, market, and public square.
"So, we put this index together as a tool for businesses and other people to understand whether these companies actually respect the religious freedom and free-speech fights of everyday Americans as a standard part of doing their business," he adds.
This is the inaugural index – and ADF plans to come out with more information every year.
"And we'll be building both the [number] of companies that we score each year and we'll also be expanding the issues that we score them on as well," adds Tedesco. "Many times, these companies just don't hear from people who maybe have a different point of view. So, this index is trying to encourage these businesses to understand that there's a broad diversity of views represented across their enterprise, whether they're looking at their workforce, their customers, shareholders, [or] people in the broader public."
The ADF spokesman contends it's in those companies' best interest to make sure they take actions that respect that broad diversity of views and don't "alienate" people within those categories.
