A national effort to undermine diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in housing, universities and corporate boardrooms is being countered in Illinois and other states by Democratic officials who say they will defend anti-discrimination laws from being “hijacked and turned on their heads.”
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul took the lead on a letter signed by 19 Democratic attorneys general late last month reaffirming their position that programs supporting diversity are valid and mitigate racial discrimination, part of an effort to take back the narrative from conservatives. The letter was delivered to the American Bar Association, Fortune 100 company CEOs and other organizations that may be targeted for DEI initiatives.
In an interview, Raoul said he wants to ensure “this very well-coordinated effort to undermine efforts to be inclusive, both in higher education and the corporate sector, does not succeed.”
The nationwide reckoning on race after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 prompted promises from institutions across the country to hire and include more people from marginalized communities.
But the movement has become a key political target for more conservative groups, who argue such initiatives are no longer necessary and undermine merit. The opposition was bolstered by last year’s Supreme Court ruling that affirmative action in college admissions is unconstitutional. Conservatives also argued the hiring of Claudine Gay as Harvard’s first Black president was an example of DEI efforts gone too far. Gay earlier this year resigned following allegations of plagiarism and her response to congressional questions on antisemitism.
There have been indications the push for DEI initiatives is weakening. As one example, discussions of diversity during corporate earnings calls have returned to 2019 levels for a broad group of public companies, according to a Bloomberg analysis published earlier this year.
Illinois Chamber of Commerce President Lou Sandoval said he’s noticed businesses are taking a step back in how they advertise so-called DEI programs, even if they’re continuing to recruit diverse workers.
“They may not just be putting it on the front page, but they’re still doing it,” Sandoval said.
Changes in the political environment and business strategy have had an impact, he said.
“Has it changed the way we talk about it? Probably, as a protective measure. Is it any different than what we’ve done? No. It’s just, they’re not leading with it,” Sandoval said.
Raoul said attorneys general need to make sure people understand that last year’s Supreme Court case banning affirmative action on college campuses is narrow, and that initiatives for recruiting and retaining diverse workers are still allowed.
Diversity is good for both business and higher education, Raoul said repeatedly in the interview last month. Supporters of affirmative action and other programs that actively promote diverse campuses and workforces say the efforts level the playing field for people of color and others from marginalized communities who have faced and continue to encounter systemic discrimination.
The letter from the attorneys general came shortly after a federal appeals court panel issued a ruling suspending a program at the Atlanta-based venture capital firm Fearless Fund that sought to specifically invest in businesses owned by Black women. A founder of that firm stepped down in the weeks following the ruling, The Associated Press reported.
While firms in Illinois have not faced any high-profile lawsuits challenging corporate investments in diversity and inclusion, a lawsuit filed this spring that seeks to overhaul the reparations program for Black residents in Evanston is taking a page from the same playbook, said Aneel Chablani, vice president and legal director at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, which supports DEI programming.
The Evanston court challenge “is an attempt to take advantage” of last year’s Supreme Court Case ending affirmative action in admissions, “and to try to suggest that it in some way more broadly prohibits consideration of race in any kind of effort like this. And that that’s not what the opinion did,” Chablani said.
In early July, a separate group sued Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law, claiming the university has discriminated against white male job candidates while elevating less qualified women and people of color as faculty members. Three out of 21 job offers in the last three years went to white men, according to the lawsuit.
Northwestern spokesperson Jon Yates said the school would defend its practices in court.
“Northwestern Pritzker School of Law is among the top law schools in the country, and we are proud of their outstanding faculty,” he said in an emailed statement.
In the Atlanta Fearless Fund case, an activist conservative group called the American Alliance for Equal Rights sued the venture capital firm, which had a program specifically focused on Black women business owners. The lawsuit said the program discriminated on the basis of race. A federal appeals court panel suspended the program in June, though the case is ongoing.
“We have concerns, obviously, about preserving programs that are seeking to address historical racial injustice,” Chablani said. That’s particularly important in places such as Chicago that have a history of economic injustice toward Black residents, he said.
Raoul and others in favor of using affirmative action and similar initiatives have said last year’s Supreme Court decision against considering race in college admissions shouldn’t affect decisions outside higher education. The American Alliance for Civil Rights is led by the same activist, Edward Blum, who spearheaded the case ending affirmative action in college admissions last year.
While the Fearless Fund program suspension was a setback for supporters of actively encouraging diversity in business, it “provided a lot of fuel to the fire of our collective efforts,” Raoul said.
The president of the group suing Evanston, Judicial Watch, previously said in an interview that Evanston’s groundbreaking reparations initiative — which was designed to award $25,000 payments to Black residents of the suburb who have been affected by racial housing policies — is “just a proxy for giving out money to people based on race.”
The group has targeted the program in the past, and in 2021 it sued the city in Cook County court over related public records. It has called for the city to cease using race as an eligibility requirement for the reparations program.
Judicial Watch is also monitoring Mayor Brandon Johnson’s task force on reparations launched last month, organization President Tom Fitton said Tuesday.
“I’m under no illusions about where the politicians are on this,” he said, acknowledging that many Chicago leaders are in favor of the task force.
But that may not matter since much of the power on this issue rests with the courts, he noted, adding he thinks such fledgling initiatives in Illinois and elsewhere will face “judicial smackdowns” in courts that are less receptive to the idea of race-based reparations.
Raoul’s letter came as a counter to an early June letter from 21 Republican state attorneys general, who argued the Supreme Court’s decision against affirmative action last year also means that the American Bar Association’s standards for accrediting law schools should no longer take into account a commitment to diversity and inclusion of underrepresented groups.
Businesses should know they don’t have to “back off” from diversity, Raoul said.
The Illinois attorney general’s letter last month, along with a similar one sent last year, put Illinois in the upper echelon of support for diversity and inclusion, said Anika Rahman, CEO of the National Diversity Council. The council has not seen any kind of chilling effect on investing in minority-owned businesses in Illinois, she said.
Still, Sandoval, of the Illinois chamber, said much of the recent step-back from corporate diversity programs represents a desire to prioritize “business results” over “activism.”
“Over the last five to six years, we put a lot of activists in those roles, and activism is good until it’s not tied to a business strategy or growth,” he said. “And I think that’s the correction you’re seeing in the business right now.”
The Associated Press contributed.
