Trump Admin Grills Law Firms over DEI Hiring Discrimination, Including Perkins Coie of ‘Pee Dossier’ Fame

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on Monday sent letters to 20 law firms demanding information on their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, seeking to “root out discrimination.”

“The EEOC is prepared to root out discrimination anywhere it may rear its head, including in our nation’s elite law firms,” EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas said in a written statement. “No one is above the law — and certainly not the private bar.”

The EEOC letters noted the agency’s concerns that some firms’ employment practices, many of those labeled or framed as DEI, may unlawfully discriminate against Americans based on race, sex, or other protected practices.

The EEOC continued:

Title VII prohibits an employer from discriminating against an individual because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Under Title VII, an employer initiative, policy, program, or practice may be unlawful if it involves an employer taking an employment action motivated — in whole or in part — by race, sex, or another protected characteristic.

Title VII also bars employers from limiting, segregating, or classifying employees based on race, sex, or other protected characteristics in a way that affects their status or deprives them of employment opportunities, including in voluntary employee groups and activities which are employer sponsored. There is no “diversity” exception to these prohibitions. It is the responsibility of the EEOC to enforce the provisions of Title VII with respect to businesses and other private sector employers.

The law firms that received letters about their potentially discriminatory hiring practices include:

1. A & O Shearman
2. Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
3. Cooley LLP
4. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP
5. Goodwin Procter LLP
6. Hogan Lovells LLP
7. Kirkland & Ellis LLP
8. Latham & Watkins LLP
9. McDermott Will & Emery
10. Milbank LLP
11. Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP
12. Morrison & Foerster LLP
13. Perkins Coie
14. Reed Smith
15. Ropes & Gray LLP
16. Sidley Austin LLP
17. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP
18. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP
19. White & Case LLP
20. WilmerHale

This is the latest instance of the Trump administration hounding corporations over their discriminatory DEI practices.

In late February, the FCC, under Chairman Brendan Carr, opened a probe into Verizon’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices. He had previously opened an inquiry into Comcast’s DEI practices.

Carr has described these sort of DEI practices as “invidious forms of discrimination” that could be in violation of “FCC regulations and civil rights laws.”