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By Ross Kerber

Jan 15 (Reuters) - Big investors are about to weigh in on corporate diversity, equity & inclusion efforts. Many of their U.S. portfolio companies are in retreat mode from the DEI values they embraced in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement, as executives now worry about attacks from conservative influencers and Republicans holding power in Washington.

Top fund firms that once pressed diversity concerns haven't said much as companies cut ties with LGBTQ+ advocates and recast programs once focused on diverse employees. But the spring proxy season should create some guidance on what investors really want.

Case in point: the Feb 26 annual meeting of farm equipment maker Deere & Co DE.N, which in July became one of the first companies to back away from supporting things like LGBTQ+ Pride events.

Deere's Jan. 10 proxy statement shows that at its meeting investors will vote on five shareholder proposals on social issues from various perspectives. The company portrayed two of them as duplicates even though they came from organizations with opposing points of view.

The first, from the National Legal and Policy Center, a longtime opponent of environmental, social and governance $(ESG.NZ)$ investment considerations, asks Deere to report on new hires by race and gender "to prove it does not practice discrimination." The Center, which believes women and people of color unduly benefit from corporate policies, noted a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling race-based university admissions policies unconstitutional, though it isn't clear whether the precedent applies to companies.

A separate resolution, from the labor-aligned Amalgamated Bank and the pro-ESG advocacy group As You Sow, calls on Deere to report on its efforts to be sure no employees are excluded because of gender, race or ethnicity.

Deere unsuccessfully had asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for permission to skip Amalgamated's resolution, saying it was basically the same as the one from the National Legal and Policy Center. "The fact that the proponents of each Proposal view the issue of disclosure of the Company’s hiring practices through differing ideological lenses does not alter the fact that both Proposals share the same principal thrust and focus," Deere told the SEC in correspondence shared by As You Sow.

In a Jan. 3 letter the SEC denied Deere's request to shelve Amalgamated's resolution. The agency gave no further details and declined to comment. In its proxy, Deere urged investors to vote against both measures and three others, saying among other things it already publishes plenty of workforce data and that satisfying one proponent risks alienating the other. Deere representatives declined to comment further.

Lindsey Stewart, director of stewardship research and policy for Morningstar Sustainalytics, called the resolutions "an interesting testing ground" on DEI matters as proponents look for new ways to build support.

But he said two of Deere's largest investors, BlackRock BLK.N and Vanguard, have become very cautious about supporting resolutions with social or environmental themes .

Neither firm commented for this article, nor did Deere's largest investor, Cascade Investment, family office of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. A disclosure shows BlackRock discussed diversity and inclusion with Deere last Aug. 6.

Support for pro-ESG resolutions ran around 20% last year, about 10 times the level for anti-ESG resolutions. Let's see how Deere's meeting might reset expectations this year.

(Reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston; Editing by David Gregorio)

((ross.kerber@thomsonreuters.com; (617) 412 0093;))