(Bloomberg Law) — Former Trump adviser Stephen Miller’s legal group sued IBM Corp. subsidiary Red Hat Inc., claiming the company’s diversity goals led to the discriminatory treatment and firing of a former white employee.
Most read on Bloomberg
In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho, America First Legal said Allan Kingsley Wood, a former senior director at Red Hat, was subjected to racial and gender discrimination because of the diversity program, of equity and inclusion of the IBM subsidiary. , which involved setting hiring goals for women and minorities.
The AFL has filed several lawsuits over DEI-related issues. But the conservative group has more frequently filed complaints directly with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, submitting more than 30 requests for the civil rights agency to investigate companies’ DEI programs high-profile case for bias, including one targeting IBM’s diversity work.
The EEOC has not yet publicly responded to the group’s letters, which generally assert that companies’ DEI efforts discriminate against white and male employees, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. 1964.
Conservative groups are increasingly launching legal attacks against DEI companies following the June 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling restricting affirmative action in college admissions. The lawsuits claimed that hiring and recruiting decisions made regarding full-time jobs and scholarships at major companies were biased against white workers, but achieved only limited impact in federal courts.
Red Hat began implementing new diversity requirements in 2021, hiring a DEI CEO to lead those efforts, according to Wednesday’s lawsuit. The AFL says the company said its DEI initiatives would impact hiring decisions.
Wood has expressed opposition to the company’s DEI policies due to his religious, personal and political views “and has continually advocated for hiring based on merit and skills rather than other immutable characteristics,” the AFL said in its complaint.
The conservative legal group said Red Hat announced DEI goals that involved “quotas”, aimed at “reshaping the demographics of its workforce, seeking to achieve 30% women globally and 30% women ‘associates of color in the United States by 2028’.
Two weeks later, Wood learned that his position was being eliminated, along with 21 other employees, the vast majority of whom were also white and male, according to the lawsuit.
The complaint also said Wood was retaliated against for expressing his beliefs, reducing his approved leave under the Family Medical Leave Act to terminate his employment.
In its letter to the EEOC in December 2023 and in a letter to IBM’s board of directors, Miller’s group cited video footage of IBM CEO Arvind Krishna and Red Hat CEO Paul Cormier , discussing diversity. Krishna says in the video that company executives’ bonuses can be affected if they fail to meet DEI goals.
The wood seeks…
