Insights: Alerts Trump Administration Previews Enforcement Against Private Sector DEI Initiatives
Our prior Legal Alert regarding President Trump’s January 21, 2025 Executive Order entitled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” (“January 21, 2025 Executive Order”) focused on its rescission of a longstanding order from 1965, Executive Order 11246, which applied to federal government contractors. President Trump’s January 21, 2025 Executive Order also impacts private employers.
How the January 21, 2025 Executive Order Addresses the Private Sector
Section 4 of the January 21, 2025 Executive Order focuses on private sector diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) programs and initiatives. Specifically, Section 4’s stated purpose is to encourage ending “illegal DEI discrimination and preferences.” Here, Section 4 outlines a preview of potential future enforcement actions against private entities.
The January 21, 2025 Executive Order directs the Attorney General to submit a report within 120 days containing a “strategic enforcement plan” with recommendations encouraging the private sector “to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.” The report also will include key sectors of concern, as well as “the most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners in each sector of concern.”
Additionally, each agency also is required to identify up to 9 potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, state, and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowment over 1 billion dollars.
The Attorney General’s report will identify matters that “would be potentially appropriate for federal lawsuits.”
What is Next for the Private Sector
All DEI programs are not illegal. At this time, private sector employers should review and understand the purpose of their current DEI programs and initiatives and how they are implemented. Once the Attorney General submits her report, which is expected on or before May 20, 2025, we will know more about this administration’s enforcement plan.
For more information on how the January 21, 2025 Executive Order affects your workplace policies and compliance obligations, please contact one of the authors or a member of Kilpatrick’s Labor and Employment team.
Related People
Disclaimer
While we are pleased to have you contact us by telephone, surface mail, electronic mail, or by facsimile transmission, contacting Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP or any of its attorneys does not create an attorney-client relationship. The formation of an attorney-client relationship requires consideration of multiple factors, including possible conflicts of interest. An attorney-client relationship is formed only when both you and the Firm have agreed to proceed with a defined engagement.
DO NOT CONVEY TO US ANY INFORMATION YOU REGARD AS CONFIDENTIAL UNTIL A FORMAL CLIENT-ATTORNEY RELATIONSHIP HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED.
If you do convey information, you recognize that we may review and disclose the information, and you agree that even if you regard the information as highly confidential and even if it is transmitted in a good faith effort to retain us, such a review does not preclude us from representing another client directly adverse to you, even in a matter where that information could be used against you.
