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Further to our recent report: "Board & Workplace Diversity: State of Play,” PeopleReturn reported an ongoing decline in “Rooney Rule” commitments, i.e., active language that explicitly prioritizes including women and people of color in candidate, down from 35.7% in 2024 and 18.6% in 2025, to 12.4% of Russell 3000 proxy filings to date.
Board diversity disclosure among the Russell 3000 has also declined significantly, as shown here:
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2024
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2026 YTD
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Aggregate gender
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90.9%
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55.2%
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Aggregate race/ethnicity
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87.4%
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47.7%
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Aggregate overall (gender + race/ethnicity)
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78.7%
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34.5%
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Year over year, the Russell 3000 and Russell 1000 showed a similar rate of decline, with a more pronounced decrease in disclosure observed among S&P 1500 companies and less pronounced decrease across the S&P 500, as compared to the Russell 3000.
By contrast, individual director gender and race/ethnicity disclosure is actually up slightly compared to last year at 12.4% (vs. 11.6% in 2025) but well below the 20.1% observed in 2024.
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