NEW YORK (AP) — Advocates of diversity efforts are steeling themselves for a fight this year as a growing number of lawsuits take aim at programs intended to advance racial equity in the corporate world.
Lawsuits making their way through the courts have targeted prominent companies and a wide array of diversity initiatives, including fellowships, hiring goals, anti-bias training and contract programs for minority or women-owned businesses. Most have been filed by conservative activists who have been encouraged
Misty Gaither, vice president for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at Indeed, said the online jobsite is sticking with its goal of increasing the representation of underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities in its U.S. workforce to 30% by 2030.
“We are doubling down on our efforts because we believe it’s the right thing to do,” Gaither said.
Conservative activists have seized on the goals to argue that hiring managers are being pressured to make race-based decisions in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits taking race into account in hiring decisions.
America First Legal, a group run by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, sent a letter in November to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission seeking an investigation into Macy’s DEI policies, including its goal of achieving 30% ethnic diversity among its leadership at the director level and above by 2025, in part to better serve its customer base, which is about 50% non-white. The retailer launched a leadership training program for selected managers of color, and last year required that candidates for director roles include ethnically diverse applicants. It also has incorporated its DEI goals into annual performance reviews for directors and company-wide incentive calculation.
America First Legal cited those initiatives to argue that Macy’s “has set explicit racial and other quotas for hiring.” The group has sent dozens of similar letters to the EEOC targeting companies from IBM to American Airlines.
Macy’s declined to comment on the letter. But in a previous interview with The Associated Press, outgoing Macy’s CEO Jeff Gennette said the company is sticking with its DEI policies while closely watching legal developments.
“Our enthusiasm and our commitment to all the prongs that we had with DEI, and our strategy, remains. We might express it differently based on court rulings and in the future,” Gennette said, without providing details.
