AT&T Sued Over Blocked Diversity Vote

AT&T is facing a lawsuit from four New York City public pension funds that claim the company improperly prevented shareholders from voting on a proposal related to workforce diversity disclosures.

The funds allege that AT&T refused to include their proposal in its 2026 annual shareholder meeting agenda. The proposal sought public disclosure of the demographic breakdown of the company’s 133,000 employees by race, ethnicity, and gender.

According to the complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, AT&T justified the exclusion by citing a recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission policy change that allows companies to omit shareholder proposals if they believe there is a reasonable basis to do so.

The pension funds argue that SEC rules do not permit such a move and claim the decision harms shareholders by limiting transparency. They are seeking to block AT&T from distributing proxy materials that exclude the proposal.

The complaint notes that AT&T previously disclosed workforce diversity data publicly between 2021 and 2023, but stopped doing so in 2024 without explanation, despite continuing to submit the information to federal regulators.