Trump's anti-corporate DEI campaign faces high legal hurdles
Source: Reuters
December 23, 2025 6:10 AM EST Updated 8 mins ago
WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's anti-discrimination enforcement agency has a high bar to clear to prove companies' diversity, equity and inclusion policies run afoul of the law, according to interviews with more than a dozen corporate legal and compliance experts.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under new Chair Andrea Lucas is making a sharp pivot towards what she calls "a more conservative view of civil rights", like prioritizing cases of discrimination against white men. That shift, coupled with the Trump administrations aggressive campaign to dismantle DEI programs, is set to collide with the boundaries of U.S. discrimination law, long a cornerstone of workplace equality.
The move signals a broader campaign to redefine the meaning of workplace fairness, setting up a potential clash with corporate America, which has widely adopted DEI measures to hire and retain diverse talent.
Lucas plans to open inquiries into corporate DEI practices to find whether employers made race or sex-based decisions, she told Reuters in an exclusive interview last week. Specifically, she called for submissions of possible instances of discrimination against white men by corporate DEI practices. But a program is not illegal just because the administration says so, said former EEOC Chair Jenny Yang. The agency still has to build a case and convince the courts that a company's programs violate discrimination law.
Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/trumps-anti-corporate-dei-campaign-faces-high-legal-hurdles-2025-12-23/
sinkingfeeling
(57,058 posts)IbogaProject
(5,564 posts)Our civil rights act only really covers Blacks with ancestors from south of the Sahara and maybe Latinos and Native Americans. I know of a professor who was targeted and was Italian American, the school wanted more balance in their faculty and over a couple of decades the case went through State and Local Court. Even with an overt admission that they had decided to rebalance their lineup of professors which contradicted sworn testimony the case was denied in Federal Appellate court as Italian-American wasn't a protected class. The intent of the Civil Rights Act was to temporarily protect a few select groups while they got a chance to catch up. That is still an unfinished goal. I really hope skilled and caring attorneys can right this misuse of this law.