DAMI Condemns Anti-ESG Legislation Introduced in Congress

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Diverse Asset Managers Initiative's (DAMI) founder and executive director Robert Raben issued the following statement condemning anti-ESG legislation introduced by Andy Barr (R-KY).

"Raise your hand if you think diversity – specifically working with women and people of color – is a cancer? Nobody, right?

"Wrong.

"Please meet Congressman Andy Barr, who joined a growing list of conservative state and federal politicians attacking ESG based on the flawed premise that investments, which take into account environmental, social, or governance factors, negatively impact fund performance. He and other conservative lawmakers claim that the goal of their anti-ESG efforts is to ensure that investors’ returns are prioritized ahead of social and environmental goals. 

“The Diverse Asset Managers Initiative agrees that asset managers should maximize fund performance for retirees. All credible studies in virtually every field, including asset management, show that diversity among asset managers improves returns. 

“Given those data, it ought be a fiduciary duty to diversify investments and every effort should be made to work with the best possible asset managers – many of whom are women or people of color. Instead of hiding their true intentions by using phrases like ‘woke investment,’ we encourage Rep. Barr and his colleagues to follow the data.

“Barr calls ESG ‘the cancer within our capital markets.’ By that he means, inter alia, working with people of color. We call on Rep. Barr to have integrity and simply say what he means – that you think working with white women, or Black or Latino managers, is a cancer. And we call on business leaders to name what is going on here; diversity is not an abstraction, it means in this context working with women and people of color.”