"Corporate Equality Index 2002"
No authors cited
The Human Rights Campaign Foundation, August 2002.
This study from the Human Rights Campaign Foundation reports that the majority
of American corporations accept the basic principles of non-discrimination
and domestic partner benefits for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered
employees. However, the study also argues that a company's “commitment
to full equality cannot be considered complete if they are not ‘walking
the talk’ by regularly training all staff in what these policies mean
and by becoming full participants in the quest for civil rights through
corporate giving and/or respectful, appropriate marketing and advertising.”
The study examined the performance of 319 employers on a scale of 0 to 100
regarding seven equality principles:
- Has a written non-discrimination policy covering sexual orientation
in its employee handbook or manual.
- Has a written non-discrimination policy covering gender identity and/or
expression in its employee handbook or manual.
- Offers health insurance coverage to employees’ same-sex domestic
partners.
- Officially recognizes and supports a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
employee resource group or council or has a company policy that gives
employee groups equal standing regardless of sexual orientation and gender
identity.
- Offers diversity training that includes sexual orientation and/or gender
expression in the workplace.
- Engages in respectful and appropriate marketing to the lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender community and/or provides support through its
corporate foundation or otherwise to LGBT or AIDS-related organizations
or events.
- Engages in corporate action that would undermine the goal of equal rights
for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Only 4 percent of the companies surveyed rated a perfect 100 percent, while
only 1 percent received marks of 0 percent. The median for all companies
was a 57 percent score which was exceed by the financial services (71 percent),
high tech (79 percent) and consulting (86 percent) industries. Engineering
and construction; food, beverage and grocery enterprises; and retail and
consumer products scored well below the median for the study. Geographically,
North Carolina and Colorado had the highest rating at 86 percent, while
companies surveyed in Arkansas (22 percent), Tennessee (29 percent) and
Missouri (29 percent) did a particularly poor job in their treatment of
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered employees.
