03-25-2025
The EEOC’s acting chair sent letters to 20 of the country’s largest law firms, questioning them about their diversity programs and practices. In the letter, the agency indicated its concern that the firms discriminated against white candidates. The targeted firms are A & O Shearman; Debevoise & Plimpton; Cooley LLP; Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer; Goodwin Proctor; Hogan Lovells; Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins; McDermott Will & Emery; Milbank, Morgan, Lewis & Bockius; Morrison & Foerster; Perkins Coie; Reed Smith; Ropes & Gray; Sidley Austin; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Skadden Arps; White & Case; and Wilmer Hale.
Former EEOC officials wrote to the acting chair to express their “grave concerns” about the letters served on the law firms. They stated that the letters requested “extensive information and imply a duty to respond without any basis in the laws that the EEOC enforces.” Title VII does not empower the EEOC to make a public demand for information. If the EEOC chooses to file charges of discrimination on its own (which it can), the statute precludes those charges from being made public. The former commissioners and chairs asked the current acting chair to withdraw the twenty letters she issued.