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We're back with another edition of the
Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Kashinski,

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culture editor here at the Federalist.
As always, you can email the show

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at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST.

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Make sure to subscribe wherever you download
your podcasts, and to the premium

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version of our website as well.
I'm happy to be joined today by Jeremy

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Todesco. He is a senior counsel
and senior vice president of corporate engagement over

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at Alliance Defending Freedom. Jeremy,
thanks for joining the program. Thanks for

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having me on. Yeah, I'm
really curious about all the work you're doing

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with the Viewpoint Diversity Score Initiative and
all kinds of other stuff related to DEI

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and ESG that is looming really large
over our conversation about American culture and politics

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right now, and no small part
thanks to that wonderful testimony from Claudine Gay

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and Liz McGill and everyone who couldn't
answer some basic questions in front of Congress.

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But I want to start Jeremy first
by asking you what in your career

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led you to ADF. Just some
background, professional background, personal background,

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whatever, you want to tell us
about how you ended up doing this work

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at ADF, that would be awesome. Yeah, I've actually been That's great.

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I appreciate that. I've been at
ADF for twenty years almost so May

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is my twentieth year, and so
I started here out of law school.

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It was the only kind of job
I ever wanted to have was defending free

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speech and religious freedom. I went
to law school to do that, and

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I told my wife, if I
don't get a job at a law firm

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that does that kind of work,
I probably won't even use my law degree.

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And God was good enough to open
up the doors to ADF, and

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I've stayed here. It's been an
awesome career. I a litigated for years

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and years and years, and now
I do a lot of work in the

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corporate space, paying much of what
I learned being a First Amendment litigator and

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defending First Amendment freedoms and religious freedom
and trying to apply it to the business

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sector and help the business community understand
why it's important for them to contribute to

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a culture that respects free speech and
religious freedom. You know, I actually

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just want to stay on that point
briefly, because ADF the work that ADF

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has done has principles, have never
changed the nature of the fight. I've

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talked with Christen Wagner about this before. Over the years has evolved in ways

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some people predicted and saw coming because
they were in the coal mine and heard

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the canary, but others sort of
didn't understand how quickly some of this was

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metastasizing and how quickly it would start
to dominate our culture. And Jeremy,

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maybe you can just speak to that
a little bit, how you have seen

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from this kind of front row seat
to the culture war. Really the nature

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of these conversations about religious liberty and
free speech and the combination of religious liberty

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and free speech that has shifted a
mind just in the course of your time

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at ADF. Yeah, it's so
true. I just go back and look

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at the course of my work.
When I started at ADF, the main

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thing I was doing for several years, many years was filing cases on behalf

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of little Bible clubs at public schools
and trying to get an equal access and

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just saying, look, these Bible
clubs have an equal right to be and

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exist on campus with the chess club
or something like that, and those are

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really important cases. It's critical to
be able to have the freedom to express

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your beliefs as a public school student
on campus. But it was Bible Club

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pases, it was equal access.
Now you know where I'm sitting the chair

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I'm in at ADF. I'm trying
to figure out how do we solve this

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massive problem of social media censorship and
d banking and the way in which the

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government is actually co opting these private
businesses to damage free speech and put their

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thumb down and you know the marketplace
of ideas, out views, they don't

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like, silence them and punish them
through these private corporations. So you know

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where I've gone, And your directory
of my career I think kind of shows

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the scope and seriousness of the issues. I was deadly serious about doing the

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Bible Club litigation I did years ago, and that was really important work.

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But now at the scale has just
has just really blown off the charts.

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And can I ask, I mean, did you see that coming? I

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imagine you never dismissed concerns, but
things have happened really, really quickly,

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and maybe because you were so up
close to these battles you did see it

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coming. But did you ever think
that you know, from point A to

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point B in your career, the
change would be so dramatic. I don't

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think so. No, we certainly. I mean, I think one of

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the great things about being at ADF
is that we are very forward thinking,

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We're strategic, and so we definitely
had our finger on the pulse of a

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lot of things. We knew where
some of the conversations were going. We

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were combating gender identity ideology years before
it became cool to do, so,

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you know, we were twenty eleven, twenty twelve, we were some of

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the first ones out trying to stop
the Obama administration from changing what sex mean

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meant in Title nine to include gender
identity so that, you know, boys

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could could participate in female sports or
be in female locker rooms at schools.

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We were kind of alone for the
most part of that issue for several years.

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And now there's just great and you
know, very encouraging groundswell of you

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know, just mainstream American people saying
enough's enough on the way in which we're

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treating women and girls. So,
you know, I think we saw it

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coming. I don't think we really
anybody could really appreciate the magnitude of what

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we would be up against in the
way in which folks who are you know,

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oppose these ideas and oppose these freedoms. The kind of tactics and strategies

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they would use are very sophisticated,
like the you know, just the taking

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over the financial industry to force essentially
force these private companies, publicly traded companies

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to do their bidding when it comes
to censorship and DEI and all these other

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issues. Private companies are you know, largely a tool in the hands of

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the left. Of course that's changing, but you know that was that was

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one of the tactics they did that
I don't think anybody really saw coming.

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Yeah, and you know, I
want to talk about the Viewpoint Diversity Score

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initiative that you guys work on at
ADF, And I know that's a huge

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part of what you do because we
teased this in the beginning of the conversation

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that who's coming out of Harvard,
Well, they're going to DEI positions or

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DEI responsive positions. Basically every position
at a place like you know, JP

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Morgan is a DEI responsive position because
everyone sort of has to agree to these

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ideological litmus tests in order to do
their work. At some of these major

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corporations, which ends up touching millions
and millions of people's daily lives around the

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country through the consolidation of these ideological
litmus tests that you know, are implemented

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by the people who go to Harvard
Graduate, you know, study under the

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Claudine gaze of the world, and
then end up running some of these major

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corporations and overseeing again the lives of
millions of people who work for these major

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corporations. So Jeremy, first,
maybe could you tell us a little bit

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about the Viewpoint Diversity Score that you
guys do it ADF, you know,

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is what does it measure? How
long has it been around all of that,

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Yeah, and launched in twenty twenty
two. It's a it's an index

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that measures corporate respect for free speech
and religious freedom. It's got forty two

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performance metrics that we study, so
it's broadest objective. It looks internally and

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externally. How do you treat your
workforce, how do you treat your customers

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and vendors, How do you engage
in the public square when it comes to

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free speech and religious freedom. We
are scoring right now. We score seventy

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five companies and we're focused on finance
and tech space, because from our perspective,

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that's where the concentration of power is
having a seriously detrimental impact on free

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speech and religious freedom. You know, very far. You know, social

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media companies, there's just a handful
of companies that control the digital public square,

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and they are all left leaning companies
that have terrible policies that you know,

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clearly imperil free speech. Have been
used many times, not just by

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themselves but by government actors to to
shut down speech. And so, you

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know, we're really concerned that the
so called private sector, I mean,

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this whole private public distinction anymore is
hard to tolerate. That's there's there's a

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lot of gray between a truly private
company that just some person owns or some

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handful of people owns, and then
the government publicly traded companies, you know,

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are in many ways heavily regulated and
influenced by government actors and other external

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activists, and so, you know, I don't think there's a really clean

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private public distinction we can make and
a lot of these as segments any longer,

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and that's something we have to reckon
with with as people who care about

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free speech and religious freedom rights.
We successfully defend those rights against the government.

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Our record eighty percent win rate with
the cases we file when we're living

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against the government. But now private
actors, or at least publicly traded companies

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are the ones that are engaging in
the censorship by design, because the Left,

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what they're trying to do is bypass
our civil liberties by going straight to

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the companies and telling them adopt our
social agenda and silence people who disagree with

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it and so an adopt dei and
push employees out who won't bend the need

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of that philosophy and ideology. So, you know, this is something that

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we have to deal with because the
left and progressive activists have intentionally gone to

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the private sector to force their agenda
on the American public and really on the

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world. And we have to be
there combat at that. And so how

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do you go about kind of measuring
how different corporations stack up on these questions?

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Yeah, well we look at their
mainly, our index looks at their

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policies. We've not concerned so much
about what exactly have you done? Have

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you enforced your paul We don't like
it when they obviously enforce their policies in

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a way that cuts the you know, account off of somebody. But it's

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a policy problem from our perspective,
and so we're looking at how do you

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know, treat your customers from the
standpoint of their access to services. We

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require viewpoint neutral, you know,
provisions in terms of use. The biggest

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problem in both the financial and tech
sector is that they have these very very

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broad and vague terms of use.
They use things like hate, hate speech,

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and tolerance, misinformation, you know, you name it, reputational risk.

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In the financial industry especially, these
are you know, you could do

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anything you want, You could discriminate
against any viewpoint you want with terms like

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that, because those terms don't mean
any accept in the mind of the person

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who's enforcing them. Is this offensive
to somebody? Is it offensive to me?

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If it is, well, then
I think it's hateful and tolerant.

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So those kind of policies we're worried
about from the standpoint of how corporations treat

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their customers. But we're also looking
at, you know, do you respect

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the viewpoint diversity amongst your workforce?
Do you respect religious freedom in your workforce?

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Do you have policies that don't just
give that lip service but really provide

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true protections for your workforce when it
comes to those things, because people shouldn't

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have to worry that they're going to
lose their job or not get a promotion

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because of their religious or political views. And I think a lot of people

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are in that position in many corporations
in America today. Yeah, I could

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not agree more with that. I
mean, it's I can't actually imagine working

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for one of these corporations that's constantly
pushing this stuff and just having to either

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shut up or agree in some cases
just to do your job. Jeremy,

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could you describe a little bit and
maybe you have specific examples, but a

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little bit about how these companies kind
of implement some of these agendas broadly,

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you know, is it when you're
doing your HR training? Is it in

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meetings? So what does this sort
of look like tangibly in the workplace.

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Well, I think I don't we
haven't studied that closely. What you see

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from the outside looking in is that
you know, over the last five ten

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years, there have been a ton
of diversity departments, d E and I

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departments that have been you know,
you know, just kind of created a

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new to I guess bring all these
these students who are learning DEI at college,

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bring them to the workforce and give
them something to do. HR departments

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clearly are driving a lot of the
d E and I and other toxic workforce

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practices and training and programs, and
so you know that those those seem to

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be the focal points. But it's
really kind of organization wide. We when

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we study these companies, we see, you know, what we think are

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aspects of kind of diversity, equity
and equity and inclusion thinking and other kinds

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of you know, uh CRT kinds
of thinking across a lot of different policy

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areas, and so it's it's embedded
in a lot of ways right now.

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However, I think that's also changing. You know, we've seen a lot

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of news reports lately that company is
starting to cut some people from their DEI

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departments. They're starting to pull back
from having departments at all. And these

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are all positive things. That shows
that DEI and those kinds of ideas are

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starting to lose their credibility, I
think, both in the business context but

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also in the broader culture. The
Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski.

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Every day Chris helps unpack the connection
between politics and the economy and how

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it affects your wallet. Biden still
wants more of your money. This time.

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It's called a perpetuity tax. The
more you make, the more you

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pay in. Even though you get
taxed already from your income. Small businesses

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will get waxed without seeing the money
they actually put in. Whether it's happening

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in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed.

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Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street
podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple,

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Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, it's a good point.

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And what issues does this tend to
touch because a lot of people remember in

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twenty twenty, you know, their
corporations were intentionally and there's reporting to this

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effect that twenty twenty sort of shook
corporate America in a couple of different ways.

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One of those ways was, oh, wow, we have a bunch

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of you know, normal seeming political
radicals in our workplaces. But b we

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need to hire DEI people. We
need to do X Y and G,

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x Y and Z and the e
SG, the DEI diversity, equity,

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inclusion, equity, social governance,
there's all kinds of they clearly are are

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trying to touch everything from transiteology to
equity and racial ideology. Could you talk

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to us a little bit about the
spectrum of issues that often fall under these

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umbrellas in corporate workplaces. Well,
I think the most important framework, I

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think is for people to understand is
that ESG especially is essentially the progressive political

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agenda packaged for corporate America. So
anything you and it's very malleable, but

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it's also very broad. And so
es G is environmental social governance. Well,

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environment is all the climate change stuff, all the false fossil fuel stuff,

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the climate one hundred action, you
know, the coalitions of banks and

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insurance companies that have committed to you
know, you know, decarbonizing the the

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uh, you know the atmosphere,
you know under the S. It's it's

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d E and I. It's you
know, whole host of all every social

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issue you can think of. One
of my friends likes to shorthand it by

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the E is how we live and
the S is what we believe. And

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I think it really is that broad. The left's agenda, through ESG and

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DEI is to touch every aspect of
how we live and what we believe.

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By weaponizing corporate America, to push
their values in the culture and ultimately to

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move that over to the windows so
that we can't access business services or you

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know, express our views on social
media companies if we don't hold the views

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that you know, these corporate elites
think are acceptable. So I think it's

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it's that big of a risk,
and it's that big of an issue that

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we're facing. You know, if
you want to go down to brass tacks,

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it's Disney, you know, deciding
that they were going to push really

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hard against the parental rights and education
build down in Florida a year a year

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and a half ago or so and
utterly taking it on the chin because they

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got over their skis and aggravated a
lot of their shareholders, a lot of

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their customers. Their workforce was even
writing open letters saying, we don't feel

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safe here as conservatives and religious people
who are outside of you know, this

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woke ideology because if we think if
we if we get found out, we're

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going to be pushed out, and
so you know, there's it's you never

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know exactly what DEI and THEESG are
going to force, you know, these

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companies to do, but all these
political issues around the table, you want

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to look at one interesting issue,
the Human Rights Campaign does the Corporate Equality

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Index, which is the LGBT kind
of rating system. Is that the one

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that's isn't that partially funded by Pfizer, don't they say on their website something

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like I'll have to look at it
up while you're talking. But they do

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have it. One of their index
is actually sponsored by Pfizer. I did

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just know that, and maybe that
is one of them, so that'd be

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interesting to know. Well, But
so the CEI this year to get one

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hundred percent on that index, which
all of these big companies really want that

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hundred percent from Human Rights Campaign,
you have to cover puberty blockers for miners

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in your insurance programs for your employees. So what the CEI is telling companies

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is you have to take a very
controversial position on one of the biggest flash

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points in the country. Maaly that
if you look at the polling on providing

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puberty blockers to youth, to minors, it's all whether it's Democrats, Independence

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and Republicans, it's like sixty seventy
percent are against that. So they're driving

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these corporations just like they did with
bud Light, just like they did with

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target into brand destroying decisions all to
advance their agenda. And I think that's

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one thing I want to say about
our Viewpoint Diversity Score project. In our

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index, we're actually not trying to
turn the companies into advocates for our points

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of view on these issues. We
went out of these issues. We want

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to respect the fact that they've got
a broad diversity of views represented in their

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workforces and their shareholder community, in
the broader community, and they ought to

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take a pass on engaging directly on
these social issues because they're just going to

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make someone angry or aggravated, and
it's not worth it from a business perspective

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to do that. They're engaging on
things that are just not germane to their

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business at all. So hopefully we
can get to a place. I think

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there's been a lot of ground gained
in convincing companies that it's not in their

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best interest to just do everything that
the HRC or the left wants of them

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to do when it comes to how
they engage on some of the political issues

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of the day. We've got a
lot more work to do, but we've

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certainly seen things going in the right
direction on that front. Okay, Yeah,

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so I should correct for myself.
I've just looked it up. HRC's

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Healthcare Equality Index is sponsored by FISA
and literally by pharma as well, which

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is perfect in so many ways.
But Pfizer in general is one of their

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top corporate sponsors, so certainly is
behind some of the funding of their work.

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More broadly, and actually, Jemy, that's what's so interesting. I

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don't know if you can speak to
this, but I imagine you've had conversations

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with people who are working in the
corporate world in the last couple of years,

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and it seems to me, like
Bill Ackman recently saying openly he kind

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of is openly pleading ignorance, not
to exactly how rotten to its core DEI

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is that it's not something that started
with, you know, just the best

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of intentions that if you look at
those or of founding documents of these movements,

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if you look at their charter statements, it's clearly promoting you know,

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with equity, open racism, or
sexism with DEI. Is there more understanding?

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Is there greater understanding in the corporate
world now of how these innocuous sounding

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policies that may have at one point
seemed good for business, as Mark Cuban

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is in said sting, are actually, you know, really insidious things to

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be pushing on their employees. I
think there's no question that these corporations are

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waking up to the fact that THEI
is probably not good for them. And

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I don't know how many of them
are starting to question the concept in its

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in the underlying ideology so much as
they don't want to take they don't want

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the pain that comes from publicly,
you know, people publicly it being publicly

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revealed that they are in the can
for D and I and all these other

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things. You know. I want
to believe that we can convince them that

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this is actually a bankrupt moral philosophy
that's destructive to your business and to civilization

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rather, you know, and I
think some people are open to that.

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I think some people are seeing that, but I think there's just a lot

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of negative consequences, legal, political, public relations that have made them step

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back from it. It might not
be for the right reasons all the time,

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but it's good to see the fact
that we're moving in the right trajectory.

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I think when it comes to D
E and I, do you think

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the bud light dust up during Pride
Month and also the Dodgers, you know,

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the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and all
of the genuinely bad pr If you're

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a pr person at either of those
places you weren't happy with how June took

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it turned out for you? Was
that? Did it feel like a turning

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point to you? Has it looked
like a turning point now that it's almost

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at least six months in the rear
view mirror, Did any of those in

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particulars seem to change the industry's outlook? I think that those have built upon

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what was already started by Disney about
a year before on the Parental Rights and

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Education Bill in Florida, and so
I think that I don't want to call

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them a turning point, but I
think they were additional wake up calls.

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I think the question of the corporations
are asking themselves, and I think the

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answer is becoming clear. Is is
this kind of center right pushback something that

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is just going to fizzle out and
it's just going to be some moment in

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time that we'll remember but it's not
sustained. Or is this a sustained problem

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that we're going to have to deal
with the fact that these people are unhappy

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with how were behaving running our businesses, the positions we're taking on political issues,

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the way we're treating employees and customers, and we're going to have to

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change our behavior because that's half of
our customer base, or it's going to

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impairl our ability to get good employees. So I do think that the fact

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that these are ultimately business people and
they're starting to understand that this isn't like

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some momentary dust up. This is
a sustained problem for them that they're going

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to have to deal with. They
have to change their behavior and their policy

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to build back trust with people who
are very skeptical of their motivations and actions

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right now. And that's another thing
I wanted to ask you about because DEI

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is sort of the fruit of the
rotten fruit of the poison tree. It's

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growing off of something in our culture
that again ADF has been working on for

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years. I mean, at the
heart of these issues is the same sort

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of toxic moral relativism and corruption of
sort of the founding principles that you know

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even at the beginning of your career. I'm sure it's what you were working

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on. Is at the heart of
all of this, it's just grown in

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wild directions and destructive directions on as
you said earlier, on a much bigger

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scale. And that I mean,
it seems to me that even you know,

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twenty years ago, thirty years ago, the germ of this was there.

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Because it's almost we just we no
longer share consensus values or consensus interpretations

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of what speech means, of what
the Founding Principles were. And that's kind

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of a huge topic, Jeremy,
But I'm wondering if you have thoughts on

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that, if even if we roll
back the tide of DEI, there are

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a whole lot of people in this
country that don't agree that the Founding Principles

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were essentially good, that don't agree
that free speech in principle as we understood

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it, you know twenty years ago
is good. And you know, dealing

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with DEI is at the heart of
the issue. You're really also dealing with

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that mentality, that ideology that is
prolific now in the country. Yeah,

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it is prolific. I think you're
right about that, and I think that

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we are going to reap the whirlwind
for for many years now of the education

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that we've permitted many of our major
institutions and even our public schools to provide

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to the next generation. I think, you know, we're going to have

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a problem with that consensus you're talking
about because because D. E and I

336
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and this this, this, this
you know, disgusted with Western civilization and

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our form of government and outlook on
civil liberties is something that has been taught

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and ingrained in a generation. And
I think it's worse than that. You

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look at D. E and I, it's incredibly toxic. You know.

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It teaches people that there are you
can basically categorize people and to oppressed or

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oppressor based on their personal characteristics,
things they can't change about themselves, and

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that the people who are in the
oppressed category are really excused from anything that

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they do to push back against the
oppressors. And so you know, even

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up to including violence. That's where
you get this whole idea that you know,

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violence is an appropriate response to pieces
to speech you don't like. And

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you also get the idea that speech
is violence if if if they're speaking against

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somebody in the oppressed class. So
you know, at the root of it,

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I think we've allowed a worldview to
be taught to millions of folks within

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the upcoming generation, and we are
going to have to deal with that.

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We're going to have to reckon with
that. We're going to have to,

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I think, be more vigilant than
we ever have been in protecting our religious

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freedom, our free speech rights,
our form of government, in explaining to

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people and holding the line on why
our approach to the free market and civil

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liberties is the best approach man has
ever come up with. And I think

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educational reform is necessary, but the
first thing that has to happen is dismantling

356
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DEI in all these institutions, because
as long as we continue to teach it

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to all these kids and build our
workforces around the ideas of THEE and I,

358
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you're going to be reinforcing these concepts
every day in people's lives, and

359
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that's going to lead to, I
think, ultimately very destructive problems for our

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society. In the spirit of disclosure, I always say, I'm like,

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I am a big fan of ADF's
work. I think you guys are doing

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so much important stuff, and I
always honor to speak or attend to your

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events. And one thing I saw
once I think this must have been around

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the time you were launching this initiative
was maybe steps that or how people who

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might be at organizations, corporate organizations, big companies, are there steps they

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can take Jeremy to maybe get in
contact with you all to bring your attention

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to different problems in their own workplaces. What should people who are maybe confronting

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these problems do? Yeah, Well, we have a ton of resources at

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our website related to the index,
viewpoint diversitiescore dot org. We have model

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policies, we have guidelines and different
things available to people in the business community

371
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who want to move the ball on
these issues inside of their own corporations or

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institutions, and so go there,
get connected with what we're doing. One

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thing that everybody can do, people
who are employees of the companies, people

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who are just consumers, is push
back on these companies. One of the

375
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things that we do right now with
our index is we have a coalition of

376
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shareholders who are pushing back on ESG
and DEI and promoting the idea of viewpoint

377
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neutral business services to these businesses through
the shareholder process, and so they're filing

378
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shareholder resolutions, just like what the
Left has done for years. It's one

379
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of the main tools the Left has
used to co op businesses is the shareholder

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proxy shareholder resolution process. We've got
a bunch of shareholders are starting to hold

381
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them accountable for that and push back
and lots of times our shareholder resolutions will

382
00:29:45,839 --> 00:29:49,839
end up on the proxy statement of
a company, which means every shareholder in

383
00:29:49,839 --> 00:29:53,880
the country who own shares in that
company can vote on that proposal. So

384
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when we're telling JP Mortgang Chase,
for instance, you need to knock off

385
00:29:57,640 --> 00:30:03,640
your politicized d banking, you need
to eliminate policies that are vague that allow

386
00:30:03,680 --> 00:30:10,279
for debanking people for political and religious
reasons. You can actually vote your shares.

387
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Many people are shareholders of these big
corporations in favor of those resolutions.

388
00:30:15,480 --> 00:30:19,799
You can get and you know,
in touch with your asset managers or the

389
00:30:19,839 --> 00:30:22,519
people who are in charge of your
funds and tell them you care about these

390
00:30:22,519 --> 00:30:26,960
issues and you want to tell JP
Morgan what you think, and so you

391
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:29,960
know, there's a lot of different
opportunities to make your voice be heard.

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And I think you know, one
of the things I've seen is we've done

393
00:30:32,559 --> 00:30:37,440
the shareholder engagement work, is that
the corporations actually listen. I think a

394
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lot of people right of center think
the corporations has just lost they're in the

395
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can for you know, the left, and they're never going to change.

396
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:48,279
And I don't think that's true.
It might be true for some companies and

397
00:30:48,519 --> 00:30:52,920
Silicon Valley companies. I'm concerned about
them, but we've also had a lot

398
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:56,799
of corporations who have responded really well
when we talked to them. Our shareholders

399
00:30:56,799 --> 00:31:02,720
have had terrific conversations and advanced the
ball on trying to get changes at these

400
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:07,880
corporations that will actually provide real protections
for people who are seeking services and are

401
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:14,000
afraid that they might lose those services
because of their political or religious beliefs.

402
00:31:14,559 --> 00:31:17,759
And you, on the other hand, you have all of these corporations stacked

403
00:31:17,839 --> 00:31:22,440
with the graduates of Harvard and Penn
and MIT and other schools who are very

404
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,640
committed to this agenda, and maybe
their bosses are at this point too.

405
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:30,839
Have you noticed, Jeremy, our
corporations are they getting sneakier about any of

406
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:33,640
this because you see competing reports that
on the one hand, they are moving

407
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:37,279
away from DEI. On the other
hand, certain companies you mentioned Silicon Valley

408
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:41,200
seem to want to give it a
bear hug This is telling them it's more

409
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:45,079
important now than ever before. Are
they adopting any methods that are making it

410
00:31:45,119 --> 00:31:48,680
harder for you to track for the
public to be aware of? Is that

411
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:55,799
an issue? Or in general is
it they're maybe proud in some cases and

412
00:31:55,839 --> 00:31:57,880
in other cases just walking away from
it. Well, I mean, I

413
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:02,440
don't want to overstate where we're at. We're at the very beginning of a

414
00:32:02,559 --> 00:32:10,000
long term battle to kind of pull
corporations back to neutrality and hopefully to a

415
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:15,279
place where they're they're contributing in ways
that build up a culture of free speech

416
00:32:15,319 --> 00:32:20,200
and religious freedom for everyone. And
you know, there's an incredible amount of

417
00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:27,519
entrenched thinking inside these corporations and even
you know, just like you're asking about,

418
00:32:27,599 --> 00:32:30,319
is there are they are adopting any
kind of tactics? I mean,

419
00:32:30,359 --> 00:32:36,599
generally speaking, corporations are transparent to
the left and not the people on the

420
00:32:36,640 --> 00:32:40,240
right. What I mean by that
is the corporations are happy to tell people

421
00:32:40,279 --> 00:32:45,119
on the left everything about their practices
related to environment and climate and social issues

422
00:32:45,119 --> 00:32:49,519
they care about in the HRC corporate
quality injects, But when we show up

423
00:32:49,519 --> 00:32:52,359
and ask them, hey, what
are you doing? When it comes to

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00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:54,480
your impact on free speech and religious
freedom answer a few questions for us.

425
00:32:55,279 --> 00:32:57,920
They're like, now, we don't
want to we don't want to talk to

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00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:00,599
you, we don't want to provide
that information. There's this massive lack of

427
00:33:00,640 --> 00:33:10,640
transparency that especially inhibits people who agree
with our values ability to really advocate to

428
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:14,880
these corporations. We don't even know
necessarily what are you doing, what are

429
00:33:14,920 --> 00:33:19,160
your policies, who have you know, debanked, or how you treated people

430
00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:22,839
in the relationship to these issues,
and they won't tell us. You know,

431
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:27,559
there's a fighter point on this issue. The lack of transparency is a

432
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:30,079
huge problem in the rising trend in
d banking that we're seeing in the financial

433
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:36,359
industry. Tell you a story about
Indigenous Advance. That's a ministry we represent

434
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:43,240
in Tennessee. They do work in
Uganda helping widows and orphans and getting people

435
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,160
out of sex trafficking. Well,
this April, Bank of America de banked

436
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:49,599
them out of the blue. They
had banked with them since like twenty fourteen

437
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:52,799
or fifteen. D banked them and
told them you're no longer a business type

438
00:33:52,839 --> 00:33:57,759
we want to do business with in
your risk profile has exceeded our risk tllarge

439
00:33:57,759 --> 00:34:01,720
policies. What is it that it
means nothing. It's not really an explanation.

440
00:34:02,200 --> 00:34:05,920
And so our client went back and
asked them, you know what specifically

441
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,199
have we done, like we have
changed nothing about our practices. You're debanking

442
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:14,880
us and putting us in serious trouble
in imperiling our ability to provide essential services

443
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:17,920
to people in Uganda, and Begabara
Beric Aberica just said, we're not telling

444
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:22,039
you anything else than what we put
in our letters, which was this one

445
00:34:22,079 --> 00:34:28,000
line basically about risk tolerance. And
so you know this, they completely lack

446
00:34:28,079 --> 00:34:31,239
transparency about the reasons they're debanking people. They're starting to debank you know,

447
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:37,960
like Homespun religious ministries five oh one
c three religious nonprofits in the United States

448
00:34:38,119 --> 00:34:45,280
who do a really critical humanitarian work
overseas. That is not a good trajectory

449
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:49,320
for these banks, and the lack
of transparency around their policies why they're making

450
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:52,440
these decisions is part of the problem. So there's a lot of work to

451
00:34:52,440 --> 00:34:55,559
be done. I'll go back to
that point I was making. We are

452
00:34:55,760 --> 00:35:00,639
really at the front edge of starting
to hold these corporations accountable, and we

453
00:35:00,800 --> 00:35:05,840
just can't take the foot off the
gas. Well, and Jeremy, before

454
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:09,000
I let you go, speaking of
those homespun guys, you were part of

455
00:35:09,000 --> 00:35:15,400
the legal team that represented Jack Phillips
in the Masterpiece Cake Shop case, and

456
00:35:15,840 --> 00:35:19,719
I want to just see Jeremy if
you could you give us an update on

457
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:24,119
jack situation, because it's like he
can never he can't just be at peace,

458
00:35:25,079 --> 00:35:29,239
and it's amazing how he's kept fighting
and how you all kept fighting.

459
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:32,079
But do you have an update for
us on where everything stands for Jack right

460
00:35:32,119 --> 00:35:37,000
now? Sure, his case was
just argued, the third case against him

461
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:43,039
in the Colorado Court of the Supreme
Court in December, and we're waiting for

462
00:35:43,079 --> 00:35:47,199
a decision from the Colorado Supreme Court. Depending on how that goes will determine

463
00:35:47,199 --> 00:35:51,719
our next steps. It could be
if we don't prevail, if there's a

464
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:53,840
federal question involved, you know,
we can go potentially the Supreme Court a

465
00:35:53,840 --> 00:36:00,960
second time for Jack. So you
know, Jack continues to be attacked and

466
00:36:00,559 --> 00:36:06,440
vilified for his religious convictions. Unfortunately, we're going to stand by him and

467
00:36:06,480 --> 00:36:13,960
protect him wherever this case goes.
Jack, though, is unflappable. He's

468
00:36:14,079 --> 00:36:21,239
an unbelievable man of God who has
always is just the kindest and most generous

469
00:36:21,280 --> 00:36:24,079
guy you could ever meet. I'm
lucky to call him a friend, and

470
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:28,960
it's been a privilege to represent him
all these years. It was a privilege

471
00:36:29,000 --> 00:36:31,559
to represented before the US Supreme Court
back in twenty seventeen when we won his

472
00:36:31,599 --> 00:36:37,880
first case. Amazing, just such
important work. Jeremy to desco is,

473
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:43,400
senior counsel and Senior vice president of
corporate Engagement at Alliance Defending Freedom. Jeremy,

474
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:45,559
we'll have to do this again.
It was so fascinating. Thank you

475
00:36:45,599 --> 00:36:49,599
for coming on the show. Thank
you. You've been listening to another edition

476
00:36:49,639 --> 00:36:52,840
of The Federalist for a radio hour. I'm Alisashinsky, culture editor here at

477
00:36:52,880 --> 00:36:55,280
The Federalist. We'll be back soon
with us. Until then, be lovers

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00:36:55,280 --> 00:37:08,280
of freedom and anxious for the frays
in the baz that you're born today. Staring