CV NEWS FEED // Legal nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom recently launched a score index to assess large businesses’ commitment to free speech and religious freedom, fighting against religiously or politically motivated de-banking.
The measure, called the “Viewpoint Diversity Score
Business Index,” was largely a response to banking companies closing
several organizations’ bank accounts without notice or reason, a practice
known as “de-banking.”
According to an article from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Bank of
America suddenly closed an account in 2023 belonging to a Tennessee-based
Christian charity in Uganda. The only reason that the bank provided for the
closure was that the ministry exceeded the “bank’s risk tolerance” and that it
no longer wanted to serve the ministry’s “business type.”
A similar instance
occurred in 2022, when JPMorgan Chase de-banked the National Committee for
Religious Freedom (NCRF), closing its checking account. According to ADF, the
Committee was told that Chase might reopen the account if NCRF provided the
bank with internal information.
The requested
information included a list of donors who contributed more than 10% of its
operating budget, a list of political candidates that NCRF intended to support,
and the criteria NCRF uses to choose those political candidates.
ADF’s business index
ranked tech and financial giants on a percentage scale of 0% to 100%, with 100%
being the score given to companies that respect free speech and religious freedom
rights.
In both 2023 and 2024,
Chase only received a ranking of 9%. Bank of America received an 8% score in
2023 but increased its score to 13% in 2024.
“In 2023, ADF’s
Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index found that over 60 percent of the 75 largest
tech and financial companies—including seven of the nation’s 10 largest
commercial banks—have expansive ‘reputational risk’ or ‘hate speech’ policies
that threaten their customers with cancelation or punishment,” ADF reported.
“These vaguely worded policies are a threat to everyone—and allow for
censorship against Americans of every political and religious stripe.”
ADF added:
This pattern of
de-banking cannot continue unchallenged. Our nation’s Founders understood that
the primary function of government is to protect God-given, pre-political
rights. That means threats to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness don’t
need to come from the government to cause real
harm.
Powerful financial
institutions like Bank of America, Chase, and Fidelity Charitable can threaten
freedom just as easily as any government actor.
Along with ADF, 20
state treasurers and financial officers, 24 attorneys general, and financial
professionals with over $250 billion in assets are calling on large financial
businesses and holding them accountable, asking them “to investigate claims of
religious and politically motivated de-banking.”
“Banks that are too
big to fail are too big for bias,” ADF reported, continuing:
At this fractured time
in our national history, business leaders have a vital role to play—and that
includes (perhaps most prominently) those in C-suite positions at banks and
other financial institutions.
It’s time for these
leaders to step up, and to use their considerable influence to reject
de-banking once and for all.
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