Over the past few months, three large companies have paid more than $63 million in settlements to the federal government as part of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI crusade.
The government claims the companies discriminated by using DEI practices for equitable recruitment, hiring, retention and training.
The latest came this week when Accenture, a large federal contractor that handles professional services consultancy, agreed to pay $25 million to settle claims going back to 2017 that it “discriminated” by having diversity measures.
That includes a period when the Biden administration encouraged companies to pursue diversity.
In late August, Deloitte struck a deal to pay $21.5 million. And in April, IBM agreed to pay more than $17 million.
“Opportunity and promotion in the workplace must be earned through merit,” said Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. in a statement about the Accenture settlement.
Significance. This trend could have a chilling impact on employment opportunities for communities of color. The federal government is the biggest employer in the country, and the batch of settlements marks a stark reversal of more than 60 years of policy supporting workplace diversity. In 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order requiring businesses that work with the federal government to practice affirmative action and anti-discrimination policies.
Power Structure. This marks the third major settlement, as the Trump administration weaponizes federal funding to force its anti-DEI agenda, as a previous Emancipator investigation has shown.
Before Trump’s second term, the Biden administration had embraced DEI practices.
Overlooked Angle. Roughly $4.3 million of the Deloitte settlement went to the “whistleblower” group that launched the investigation.
That group is the American Alliance for Equal Rights, run by conservative activist Edward Blum, who also heads groups challenging voting rules and school admissions policies across the country.
After a failed congressional run in Texas in 1992, Blum traded a career as a stockbroker for a curiously effective brand of conservative rabble-rousing. Over the next couple of decades, Blum cribbed notes from the civil rights playbook by carefully selecting “test cases” to litigate.
He’s been extremely successful in squelching minority voting protections and educational opportunities across the country: most notably with Shelby County v. Holder in 2015, which significantly weakened the Voting Rights Act, and with Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard in 2023, which ended race-conscious admissions policies.
