7.10.23
The complaints have been rolling in since spring. McDonald’s, Hershey and Alaska Airlines were targets, as were Anheuser-Busch and Nordstrom. Each was filed by a conservative legal group founded by a former adviser to Donald Trump, each alleging that diversity initiatives at companies are discriminatory, illegal and symptomatic of wokeness run amok.
Now that the Supreme Court has struck down the use of race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities, conservative groups and legal experts say the private sector should get ready for more challenges to their diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives.
Though the ruling is not expected to have direct legal implications on private-sector employment practices, it “will put the wind in the sails of groups like ours, who want to get the woke, racially based hiring and promotion schemes out of corporate America,” said Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, a right-wing advocacy group that has taken aim at the use of environmental and social considerations in the finance sector.