Members of Congress call on companies to retain DEI programs as court cases grind on

recent YORK — A throng of Democrats in Congress appealed to the largest U.S. companies Tuesday to hold onto their diversity, ownership and inclusion programs, saying such efforts provide everyone a fair chance at achieving the American aspiration.

The 49 House members, led by U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, shared their views in a note emailed to the leaders of the Fortune 1000. The shift follows several major corporations saying in recent months that they would complete or curtail their DEI initiatives.

“Inclusion is a core American worth, and a great business habit,” the lawmakers wrote. “By embracing this worth, you make safer and fairer workplaces without sacrificing standard or budgetary achievement.”

A handful of U.S. companies, including Ford, Harley-Davidson, John Deere, Lowes and Molson Coors, dialed back their DEI initiatives over the summer. The retreats came in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court outlawing affirmative action in college admissions and after conservative activists targeted the prominent American brands over their diversity policies and programs.

DEI policies typically are intended as a counterweight to discriminatory practices. Critics debate that education, government and business programs which single out participants based on factors such as race, gender and sexual orientation are unfair and the same opportunities should be afforded to everyone.

“They make toxic environments. They divide people,” Ilya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, said of diversity, inclusion and ownership initiatives.

The opponents have had several legislative and legal victories, and dozens more cases are working their way through the courts.

“These efforts to roll back rights are happening everywhere. They’re happening at the workplace. They’re happening in state legislatures,” Garcia told The Associated Press. “And it needs to stop. And we’ve got to push back and be vocal. We can’t just sit by and allow this to happen.”

The lawmakers’ note states that growing numbers of American consumers spend their money with businesses that champion inclusion and are unlikely to continue supporting companies that they view backing down on commitments to bring people together.

“Continual advancement towards more equal policies and benefits decreases the hazard that anyone – employees and consumers – will encounter discrimination, bias, and other threats to their safety and well-being,” the note says.

The note comes on the heels of the U.S. Equal Employment chance percentage announcing that it filed 110 lawsuits in the history year alleging that employers sexually harassed teenagers, discriminated against workers based on sexual orientation and gender identity, engaged in patterns of discrimination and violated the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, among other violations.

The lawsuits represent a tiny fraction of the complaints lodged with the EEOC. The agency received more than 81,000 charges of workplace discrimination in budgetary year 2023, which was a 10% boost over 2022, EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows said.

For every complaint, the EEOC notified the employer and launched an investigation. Many involved allegations of racial harassment or religious discrimination, Burrows said.

“Most people don’t even update internally, much less to the federal government, when they encounter discrimination, so unfortunately, it’s the tip of the iceberg,” Burrows told the AP.

She and other commissioners strongly back diversity, ownership, inclusion and accessibility programs “because it is in so many ways an antidote to the kinds of practices that navigator us to have to leave to court,” Burrows said.

The Manhattan Institute’s Shapiro counters that DEI programs have little to do with civil rights law.

“The pushback against it is not a pushback against anti-discrimination laws or anything that existed really before 10 years ago or so,” he said. “DEI is divisive. It views people and issues through lenses of identity, classifies people based on privilege hierarchies and intersectional matrices, and is antithetical to a productive working surroundings.”

Meanwhile, lawsuits claiming reverse discrimination may be gaining momentum. The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided it would listen a lawsuit filed by Marlean Ames, who claims she was discriminated against in her job at the Ohio Department of Youth Services because she was straight.

“It’s a case that people are expecting will open the courthouse doors to more reverse discrimination suits,” said Jason Schwartz, co-chairman of the labor & employment habit throng at Gibson Dunn.

Circuit courts have disagreed over whether to hold reverse discrimination cases to a higher standard. Some have ruled that if a person from a majority throng brings a discrimination case, they have to display more evidence of discrimination than a person from a minority throng who files a similar case.

“The Supreme Court’s gain in that case signals some potential that they’re going to lower the bar,” Schwartz said. “We already view a really massive uptick in these reverse discrimination cases.”

Groups such as the American Alliance for Equal Rights have pushed back on affirmative action policies at universities and diversity, ownership and inclusion policies run by corporations.

Recently, the Atlanta-based Fearless pool had to shut down a grant contest for Black women business owners as part of a settlement with the American Alliance for Equal Rights, which argued that race-based programs should be open to everyone, regardless of race.

“There’s been such an intense focus on all of the hazard emanating from the anti-DEI side,” said David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the NYU School of Law. “But I do worry sometimes that organizations may be over-correcting for that or worrying a little bit too much about that at the expense of the other side of the equation.”