Company: SOJE
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form Type: PRE 14A
Source: 0000092122-25-000032
Chunk: 104

Company: SOUTHERN CO
Filing Date: 2025-03-31
Form: PRE 14A
Chunk 104
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17053, holder of 30 shares of Southern Company common stock, submitted the following proposal.

Supporting Statement:

Southern Company is one of the largest utility companies in the United States and employs over 27,000 people. As a major employer, Southern Company should respect the free speech and religious freedom of its employees. Southern Company is legally required to comply with many laws prohibiting discrimination against employees on a variety of factors, including religion and sometimes political affiliation.

Respecting diverse views also allows Southern Company to attract the most qualified talent , promote a healthy and innovative business culture, serve its diverse customer base, and contribute to a healthy economic market and marketplace of ideas.

Despite this, the 2024 edition of the Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index 1 found that 91% of the largest companies in America promote divisive training concepts like critical race theory (CRT) that replace rich cultural and ideological diversity with a monolithic focus on group identity. Southern Company has stated that, "Our strategy for recruiting , hiring, retaining and developing employees includes a deliberate focus on DE&I." 2 In addition , the company states that it "expects all of its employees to commit" to these trainings. regardless of their views. 3

#### 88Southern Company2025 Proxy Statement

#### Stockholder Proposals
While companies often push concepts like CRT under the guise of promoting "div e rs i ty, equity , and inclusion," such efforts often have the opposite effect. Instead of creating workplaces that afford equ a l opportunity, DEI too often leads to hostility, polarization, and partiality by focusing only on differences based on skin, biological sex, or religious status.

According to the Freedom at Work survey, 60 % of employees were concerned that their company would punish them for expressing their religious or political views at work, and 54% said they feared the same fo r sharing these views even on their private social media accounts. 4

Companie s a re also facing increased legal and reputational risk for a broad array of DEI initiatives that make distinctions based on race in light of recent Supreme Court decision s in Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard, Groff v DeJoy [sic] , and C ity of St . Loui s v . Muldrow. Numerous l awsuits have been filed or threatened by state attorneys gener a l and a ggrieved employees. 5 Recent scholarship has cast serious doubt on the common assertion that DEI is good for busine s s. 6 The Wall Street Journal recently