Washington, D.C.— Today, in response to the Acting Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Andrea Lucas, sending letters to 20 law firms requesting comprehensive and detailed information about their “DEI-related employment practices,” the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law released the following statement:
“We condemn Acting Chair Lucas’ targeting of 20 named law firms working to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in their workplaces. Acting Chair Lucas does not have the authority alone to act or speak on behalf of the EEOC as an official body. Official EEOC action requires a quorum of the five-member Commission, which currently does not exist after President Trump fired two Commissioners, breaking with precedent and possibly the law.
While the rules allow individual EEOC Commissioners to initiate a charge of discrimination on their own initiative, all charges must be made under penalty of perjury. This prevents commissioners from initiating frivolous investigations or abusing the legal process. Lucas’ letters are not charges of discrimination. As such, they carry no more weight of authority than if they had been written on a cocktail napkin by any member of the public.
Acting Chair Lucas’ targeting of law firms comes on the heels of the President’s recent executive orders and other actions targeting some of the same law firms that have represented individuals and organizations the Administration sees as its political opponents, and appears to be part of a coordinated attack by the executive branch on the proper functioning of the judicial branch.
Of course, law firms, like all employers, are not above the law and must comply with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which imposes affirmative obligations on employers to ensure that workplaces are free from discrimination. Fulfilling that mandate is precisely the reason why law firms and many other employers created diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the first place.
In fact, the vast majority of programs designed to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion are both lawful and laudable, as many courts have recognized over the years. Diversity, equity, and inclusion practices are not new. These programs animate our civil rights laws and help employers identify and prevent discrimination and create safe workplaces for everyone.
The EEOC was established by Congress as an independent federal agency at the same time as the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 2024, the agency received 88,531 new charges of employment discrimination, 34% of which alleged race-based discrimination. It is a cruel irony that 60 years after its founding, the EEOC would be weaponized to attack employers for taking steps to prevent and remedy discrimination that continues to pervade our workplaces. It is especially curious to attack employers in the legal profession, which continues to struggle to advance meaningful diversity.
We trust that the private bar will see this political attack for exactly what it is and nothing more. And we implore firms to double down on lawful efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
###
About the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to mobilize the nation’s leading lawyers as agents for change in the Civil Rights Movement. Today, the Lawyers’ Committee uses legal advocacy to achieve racial justice, fighting inside and outside the courts to ensure that Black people and other people of color have the voice, opportunity, and power to make the promises of our democracy real. The Lawyers’ Committee implements its mission and objectives by marshaling the pro bono resources of the bar for litigation, public policy, advocacy and other forms of service by lawyers to the cause of civil rights.
