More than 50% of top 50 federal contractors include gender identity in their anti-discrimination policies; 86% include sexual orientation

For Immediate Distribution
April 25, 2012

Contact:
Laura Rodriguez, lrodriguez@rabengroup.com, (310) 956-2425
Brad Sears, Executive Director, sears@law.ucla.edu, (310) 794-5279
Christy Mallory, Reid Rasmussen Fellow of Law & Policy,  mallory@law.ucla.edu, (310) 794-9469

LOS ANGELES – As of April 2012, 86% of the top 50 federal contractors prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, and 55% prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. While the numbers increased from the prior year for both categories of anti-discrimination policies, the bigger increase was for gender identity, for which there was a 29% increase. Combined, these contractors represent 47% of all contracting dollars awarded by the federal government, over $249 billion in spending.

“As our prior research has shown, more companies are adopting these policies because they benefit the corporate bottom line,” said Brad Sears, Roberta A. Conroy Scholar of Law and Policy and Williams Institute Executive Director.

All of the top five federal contractors—Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon—prohibit discrimination based on both sexual orientation and gender identity. Of the top 25 federal contractors, 92% prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, and 58% prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. The list of top contractors is based on federal procurement data reported for fiscal year 2011.

The percentage of top 50 federal contractors with these policies has increased within the last few years. A prior Williams Institute report, Economic Motives for Adopting LGBT-Related Workplace Policies, based on fiscal year 2010 data, found that 81% of the top 50 federal contractors prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation, and 44% prohibited discrimination based on gender identity. The increase is due in part to a change in contractors that ranked in the top 50 from year to year, and in part to more contractors adopting these policies.

Notably, four contractors that ranked among the top 50 in both 2010 and 2011—BAE, McKesson, KBR, and Humana— have added gender identity to their non-discrimination policies since the beginning of the 2010 fiscal year. One company that ranks on both lists, KBR, has since added sexual orientation. DynCorp became the most recent of these top contractors to protect LGBT people when it added both sexual orientation and gender identity to its non-discrimination policy in February 2012. With the recent policy changes at BAE, McKesson, KBR, Humana, and DynCorp, over half of the contractors that ranked among the top 50 in 2010 now prohibit discrimination based on gender identity, and 84% of those contractors now prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation.

“The specific reasons why companies feel LGBT inclusive policies have a positive business impact include improving efforts to recruit and retain the most talented employees, improving employee morale and productivity, meeting the needs of their diverse customers, and sparking ideas and innovation through employees who bring different perspectives and experiences,” said Christy Mallory, Reid Rasmussen Fellow of Law & Policy.

To read the full report and 2012 update, click here.

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