NLPC presented a shareholder proposal today at Boeing’s 2025 annual meeting of shareholders that asked the company to review the resources it has allocated to its diversity, equity, and inclusion activities. While Boeing has nominally “dismantled” its DEI department, NLPC contends that the company has continued to push DEI in all but name, which will deprioritize merit in its talent pool, increase legal risk, and create unnecessary distractions as the company tries to rebuild its reputation.
The company’s board of directors opposed our proposal, as explained on pages 93-94 of its 2025 proxy statement. NLPC’s response to the board’s opposition statement was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission last month.
Presenting the proposal at the meeting was Luke Perlot, associate director of NLPC’s Corporate Integrity Project. A transcript of his three-minute remarks follows:
Good morning.
Boeing’s engineers should be laser-focused on safety and quality, yet the Company continues to chase demographic head-counts that expose shareholders to needless risk. Item 4 simply asks the Board to publish a straightforward report – how many people, dollars, and hours are still committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, and what legal, operational, and reputational liabilities do those programs create?
After the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, race-conscious quota schemes face the same civil-rights scrutiny that toppled affirmative-action admissions. Title VII lawsuits are proliferating; Starbucks already paid $28.3 million to a former manager for discrimination, and similar claims keep landing in federal court. Boeing quietly “disbanded” its DEI department, yet its 2024 Sustainability & Social Impact Report still trumpets a goal to increase black representation in the U.S. workforce by 20 percent and “close representation gaps” for other groups by 2025.
Further, the Company did not fire its DEI-focused staff, it simply moved them to another division. Shareholders should not accept a continuation of DEI policies under some other name.
These targets create three hazards. First, legal risk: pressure on managers to meet numeric race or gender goals can be read as a de facto quota, inviting EEOC investigations and multimillion-dollar judgments.
Second, reputational risk: Boeing is already under a microscope after aircraft safety incidents; another headline about discriminatory hiring would further erode public trust.
Third, operational risk: every dollar and engineer diverted to box-checking is a dollar not spent fixing supply-chain bottlenecks, certifying aircraft, or restoring profitability.
Put simply, DEI dilutes Boeing’s workforce effectiveness.
Some will claim that asking tough questions about DEI means abandoning diversity. Not at all. Equal-opportunity recruiting and mentoring remain essential. What we oppose are outcome-based quotas that jeopardize meritocracy and expose investors to legal and financial liabilities.
Boeing built its name on the highest quality aircraft in the world. A transparent accounting of DEI resources will show whether current policies enhance or distract from that mission.
For the sake of safety, excellence, and fiduciary duty, I urge you to vote FOR Item 4. Thank you.
Read NLPC’s shareholder proposal for the Boeing annual meeting here.
Read NLPC’s response, filed with the SEC, to the company’s opposition to our shareholder proposal, here.
