The 2015 Corporate Equality Index compiled by the Human Rights Campaign shows some support by large Arkansas corporations for protections and benefits for LGBT employees, but generally their scores are behind the bulk of major corporations in America.
The index rates Fortune 500 companies. Walmart was the leader among Arkansas-based corporations in the index with a score of 90. The top score is 100. Scores for other Arkansas-based companies were Dillard’s (30); Tyson Foods (30); Windstream (15); Murphy Oil (15), and J.B. Hunt Transport Services (0). Some familiar names that operate in Arkansas — Home Depot, Target, Starbucks and the Gap — had high scores.
Those Arkansaas scores compare with the 366 businesses in the country that had 100 percent scores — companies such as Apple, Xerox, Facebook and Yelp.
Other findings:
* 418 companies participating in this year’s CEI now offer transgender workers at least one health care plan that has transgender-inclusive coverage. That’s a 22 percent increase since 2012, when the CEI criteria first included trans-inclusive health care as a requisite for companies to receive a perfect score;
* One third of Fortune 500 companies now offer trans-inclusive health care, up from zero in 2002 when the CEI was first published;
* Gender identity is now part of non-discrimination policies at 66 percent of Fortune 500 companies, up from just 3 percent in 2002;
* And more than 290 major employers have adopted supportive inclusion guidelines for their transitioning workers.
You can access the full HRC report here.
Companies are ranked on having non-discrimination policies; insurance coverage; domestic partner benefits; diversity training and management; marketing or philanthropy aimed at LGBT people; and LGBT employee groups.