Alliance Defending Freedom’s Viewpoint Diversity Score Shows Worrying Results

A new diversity index has showed that the majority of large organisations are failing to respect freedom of speech and religious freedom – two core areas in the United States. Such findings are worrying – and shows the terrible direction we are heading in currently.

The index – called the Viewpoint Diversity Score – has been created to provide an overview of how leading companies are approaching areas of society that are crucial – including freedom of speech and religious freedom.

By failing to support freedom of speech, these companies are supporting the hypocritical and damaging “cancel culture”, and openly discriminating against religion. Therefore, this index has the potential to be incredibly valuable to hold such companies accountable.

What is the Viewpoint Diversity Score?

The Viewpoint Diversity Score ranks companies on the degree in which they respect the viewpoints of their customers, employees and other stakeholders – with a specific focus on freedom of speech and religious freedom.

The index has brought together leaders from business, civil society and academia who are committed to preserving the freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief in the market, workplace, and public square.

A worrying trend where big organisations have become the “gatekeepers” of the media – deciding what is and isn’t acceptable, has emerged in recent times. The general consensus among these companies is to espouse a left-wing approach to the media – and declaring anything to the contrary as wrong, or “cancelling” those against them.

This cancel culture results in anyone expressing views outside of those associated with left-wing radicals – being harshly criticised and in the worst cases, banned from platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Cancel culture is in direct opposition to freedom of speech and religious freedom.

The website states that the mission of the project is to “educate, equip, and galvanize businesses to respect the diverse views of their employees, customers, shareholders, and other stakeholders”. By doing so, it will “enrich and strengthen society by fostering a culture that respects free speech, religious tolerance, and open discourse”.

The Results

The results were very, very worrying. For the 2022 Business Index, the focus was on industries that have the greatest potential to impact freedom of speech and religious freedom. These included banks, computers, financial data services and more. In total, 50 companies were profiled.

The average score across the 50 companies was an abject 12% – which highlights the problem. The two industries that scored the lowest were computer software and internet services. Unsurprisingly, social media companies had among the lowest scores.

The overall score that each company received was based on set criteria. These criteria was split into three areas – market score, workplace score and public square score. These areas focused on elements like terms of service and content policies that pose risks to freedom of speech and religion, policies on discrimination, restrictions on content based on a stakeholder’s views, political spending and respecting religious diversity and charitable choices.

To view all of the results, visit Viewpoint Diversity Score’s business index. We have picked out a few of the biggest companies to show the alarming scores being achieved:

• Alphabet (parent of Google): 9%
• Amazon: 6%
• Apple: 8%
• JPMorgan Chase: 15%
• Microsoft: 5%
• Morgan Stanley: 9%
• Snap, Inc (parent of Snapchat): 10%
• Twitter: 6%

The highest scoring company were Paychex with 35%, though only two other companies had scores over 20%. GoDaddy scored the lowest with just 2%. The fact that the highest score was 35% shows that a lot of work needs to be done.

As a result of the findings, there have been some recommendations put forward. This focuses on implementing best practices including prohibiting restriction of content, respect the freedom of vendors and suppliers to do business in a way that is consistent with their values, promote divisive concepts in the workforce and cultivate workplaces to welcome and respect religious diversity among others.

Alliance Defending Freedom

The Viewpoint Diversity Score has been created in association with Alliance Defending Freedom. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is an organisation that has for over 25 years upheld and fought for the values of freedom of speech and religious freedom.

ADF is the world’s largest legal organisation committed to protecting religious freedom, free speech, marriage and family, parental rights, and the sanctity of life. It bids to uphold Christian values around the United States. It also has international offshoots.

ADF has been simply incredible for Christianity – and has helped to protect Christians from discrimination and other egregious acts. ADF has frequently taken their cases to America’s Supreme Court – and has won many, many cases – many of which have been high-profile.

The Takeaway

It is concerning to see reports like this. Maintaining freedom of speech and religious freedom is crucial now more than ever – and the business index by Viewpoint Diversity Score shows that there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

Several large organisations have appalling scores – this must change. Hopefully we will see positive changes going forward, so that Christian values are upheld, and freedom of speech is respected at all times.

Generation95 is in no way associated with Viewpoint Diversity Score. This article has been written purely for information purposes. You can access their website by clicking here!