Company: USB-PA
Filing Date: 2025-03-05
Form Type: DEF 14A
Source: 0001104659-25-020883
Chunk: 96

Company: US BANCORP \DE\
Filing Date: 2025-03-05
Form: DEF 14A
Chunk 96
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 Supreme Court recently and unanimously sided with the NRA and ACLU to condemn any government officials who would coerce financial institutions to deny service to their political opponents. ix Many states have also passed laws protecting state pension funds and contracts from politicized finance. xAnd Tennessee, Florida, and Texas have directly prohibited de-banking. xi But the 2023 edition of the Viewpoint Diversity Business lndex xiishows that 69% of the largest financial institutions include vague and subjective grounds to deny service like “reputational risk,” “social risk,” “misinformation,” “hate speech” or “intolerance.” This includes U.S. Bancorp, which is subject to problematic “reputational risk” regulations and can close a customer’s account “for any reason or for no reason at all.” xiiiU.S. Bancorp also made headlines last year when it de-banked the Constitution Party of Idaho. These kinds of terms encourage financial institutions to deny or restrict service for arbitrary or discriminatory reasons. They also give fringe activists and governments a foothold to demand that private financial institutions deny service under the sweeping, unfettered discretion that such policies provide. When companies engage in this kind of discrimination, they hinder the ability of Americans to access the marketplace and instead become de factoregulators and censors. This undermines the fundamental freedoms of our country and is an affront to the public trust. U.S. Bancorp needs to increase transparency around these practices and provide assurances to customers that it does not discriminate based on a customer’s political or religious views. Resolved:Shareholders request the Board of Directors of U.S. Bancorp conduct an evaluation and issue a report within the next year, at reasonable cost and excluding proprietary information and disclosure of anything that would constitute an admission of pending litigation, evaluating how it oversees risks related to discrimination against customers based on their race, color, religion (including religious views), sex, national origin, or political views, and whether such discrimination may impact customers and other individuals’ exercise of their constitutionally protected civil rights. ihttps://www.unepfi.org/net-zero-banking/ iihttps://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/new-report-exposes-massive-government-surveillance-americans-financiaI-data; https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/warren-omar-lawmakers_seek-information-from-big-banks-on-account-closure-
practices-that-discriminate-against-muslim-americans

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