WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, America First Legal (AFL) sent a letter to The Walt Disney Company (Disney), notifying the Company’s CEO, Bob Iger, the Board of Directors, and the management team of their alleged fiduciary duty breaches and federal securities law violations that have led to an approximate forty percent drop in Disney’s share value since February 2021. This letter arises from the Company’s civil rights violations in employment and contracting and the damage to Disney’s brand, properties, and commercial reputation by management’s manufactured misalignment between its woke political and social agenda and the vast majority of the Company’s customers.
In February, AFL revealed Disney’s perverse system of discriminatory race and sex quotas in front of and behind the camera by filing a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
- All Disney General Entertainment productions are required to comply with Disney’s DEI “Inclusion Standards.” Some of the standards explicitly provide that fifty percent of the following jobs must be filled by members of “Underrepresented Groups:” Regular and recurring actors and characters in Disney content, producers and writing staff, overall crew or project staff, line producers and/or production department heads – including, for example, the director of photography, composer, costume designer, editor, production designer, and music supervisor.
- Disney, along with Sundance Institute, runs a grant program that provides $25,000 to “Underrepresented Directors,” which it defines as “women, AAPI, Black, Indigenous/Native, Latinx, LGBTQIA+, disability-identifying, and religiously marginalized individuals.”
AFL’s letter alleges that Disney’s patently illegal program of racial, sexual, and national origin quotas and preferences is the result of the Board’s failure to put in place effective internal controls to stop civil rights violations.
AFL also alleges that Disney’s management has intentionally manufactured misalignment between the Company and its core customers. Disney has told the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that its business “depends on our ability to successfully predict and adapt to changing consumer tastes,” and that its “revenues and profitability are adversely impacted when our entertainment offerings and products, as well as our methods to make our offerings and products available to consumers, do not achieve sufficient consumer acceptance.”
Disney also admits that it faces “risks relating to misalignment with public and consumer tastes and preferences for entertainment, travel and consumer products, which impact demand for our entertainment offerings and products and the profitability of any of our businesses.” Yet management has hijacked the iconic company’s parks and creative content to push an extreme and divisive political and socio-sexual agenda that is contrary to the values and preferences of the vast number of American families.
As a result, shareholders have suffered a bloodbath.
In February 2021, the Company’s market capitalization was approximately $341 billion. Today, it is approximately $207 billion – a drop of nearly forty percent. In an apparent violation of federal securities laws, Disney’s management has never adequately disclosed to shareholders the financial risk created by its decision to use the Company as a weapon for woke culture warriors to destroy pro-American culture.
Disney has displayed an inexplicable disregard for its customers and shareholders, forcing radical gender-expansive, anti-White, and anti-police content on families while providing warnings about harmful content on uncontroversial content.
For example, Disney+ allows users to set up “Junior Mode” profiles for young children. Disney only allows these profiles access programming that is supposedly “appropriate for all ages.” Among this “appropriate” content is a program that amplifies racial divisiveness and societal unrest. In this show for young children, children can be seen making protest signs featuring the “black power” fist.
The program tells young children that “Racism in the world affects me and you” and that their skin color is what defines them.
A Black character warns a younger Black character that police might try to stop him on the street because he is Black.
He also tells the young character that a white man boarding up his business has nothing to fear because “no one is trying to hurt them.” In reality, the Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 caused more than $1 billion in damage and resulted in more than 20 deaths.
Young children can view this program and an episode of Muppets Babies where Gonzo cross-dresses as a female princess in this take on the classic Cinderella story. Ironically, “Junior Mode” profiles can view this episode but cannot view classic, uncontroversial Disney films like Cinderella.
Recent Marvel releases have put woke ideology front and center as well. In the opening minutes of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Ant-Man’s daughter describes police firing tear gas “peaceful protestors.”
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness also has a character wearing an LGBTQ pride pin front and center for most of the film.
Disney+ even features radical content produced under its “scientific” National Geographic banner.
Gender Revolution: A Journey with Katie Couric promotes multiple radical gender dogmas:
- That “your external genitalia does not dictate your gender.”
That children can diagnose themselves as transgender:
And that puberty blockers are reversible and should be given to all trans minors entering puberty:
AFL’s investigation into gender clinics uncovered consent forms requiring minors to acknowledge that some “gender-affirming” treatments are not FDA-approved and can lead to multiple dangerous and unstudied side effects.
Another program on Disney+ called Pride from Above features a nearly topless transgender individual riding a bike past a young child.
In another scene, the program shows a parade in Australia where the camera prominently handicapped person holding a sign that says “I Get Horny Too.”
Another sign says “SUPER PROUD PARENT” among a group of transgender flags and signs.
Other visuals from the program show men wearing shirts that are essentially a series of straps and only wearing underwear.
The website for this parade describes that one can “expect” to see “[p]eople of all ages” and “[s]ome nudity.”
There is no warning on this show with graphic content. However, classic Disney movies like Peter Pan, Dumbo, and The Aristocats each have mandatory, unskippable twelve-second warnings about the “harmful impact” of certain portrayals of people and cultures that “were wrong then and are wrong now.”
Statement from Gene Hamilton, America First Legal Executive Director:
“Disney is an iconic American brand–the product of decades of family-focused content infused with American pride that hundreds of millions of Americans have enjoyed for decades. But today, Disney’s leadership appears to have abandoned its roots–and most notably, its shareholders–in hopes of placating an insatiable activist movement that aims to radically reshape the Disney brand into something that is completely inconsistent with its history. If Disney were a privately held corporation, it could make whatever foolish decisions it desired if those decisions complied with the law. But it’s not. Disney’s leadership is gambling with–and losing–shareholder money and appears to be violating federal law in the process. Disney’s Board of Directors and management team need to take immediate action to address the issues we’ve identified in our letter and uphold their duties to their shareholders,” said Gene Hamilton.
Read the letter here.
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