Corporate Leadership

Talk of Racial Injustice Tapers in Recent Earnings Calls

Only a single company has mentioned "racial injustice" so far this quarter

Photographer: Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto/Getty Images
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Executives at public companies are talking less and less about race-related issues during earnings calls, more than a year after the murder of George Floyd forced corporate America to reckon with its own systemic bias.

The usage of terms including “racism,” “equality” and “social justice” peaked on earnings calls for S&P 500 companies in the third quarter of 2020. Of those 500 calls, “racial injustice” was mentioned 36 times. Of the 118 calls that have taken place during the second quarter of this year, only one company — Adobe Inc. — used the term. There are 382 more calls left this earnings season.