Are corporations going liberal? Conservative pushback on the rise.

For years corporations have faced pressure from the left to pivot beyond “shareholder value” to think of wider stakeholders and longer-term risks such as climate change. But that so-called ESG movement faces rising criticism.

Proposal 6 of the proxy statement for this week’s annual meeting at Bank of America reads like many proposals routinely pushed by progressive shareholders. It calls for the bank to split the CEO and board chairman positions between two people rather than concentrating power in the hands of a single person. 

Nearby on the ballot were other proposals...