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Facing anti-DEI backlash, most business leaders still view diversity, equity and inclusion as an essential business strategy. Legal experts offer advice for distinguishing between law and political rhetoric, and for defending legal DEI initiatives.<\/p>\n
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Business leaders are being pushed from opposite directions on diversity, equity and inclusion. These competing forces are creating confusion over the most effective path forward in designing and defending legal DEI initiatives.<\/p>\n
Most workers still value DEI practices, which impact recruiting and retention. Four out of five workers support their organization\u2019s DEI efforts, and more than two thirds say that DEI initiatives positively impact their work experience, according to a 2024 survey of 1,345 U.S. employees conducted by The Conference Board. Two out of three workers surveyed said they would not work for an employer that does not take DEI seriously, or would do so only reluctantly.<\/p>\n
Yet both the Trump administration and federal agencies that enforce discrimination laws have launched a concerted attack on DEI measures. America First Legal, cofounded by White House advisor Stephen Miller, has initiated multiple legal actions with the stated goal of dismantling DEI across both private and public sectors.<\/p>\n
“This administration is not going to let our society devolve into communist, woke, DEI strangulation,” Miller stated during a White House briefing in May.<\/p>\n
As a result, 63% of executives in The Conference Board survey view the current political climate for DEI as either \u201cvery\u201d or \u201cextremely\u201d challenging.<\/p>\n
Despite these increased threats, over 80% of corporate leaders still view diversity initiatives as essential to their business strategy, based on a 2024 report by Morning Consult surveying 325 C-Suite executives at large U.S. companies. The majority of companies are seeking ways to continue their DEI investments while mitigating legal risk.<\/p>\n
In response to these conflicting pressures, legal experts have created three resources to assist companies in designing and defending legal DEI measures.<\/p>\n
Legal experts have created three valuable resources to help companies understand what discrimination laws both require and permit when designing DEI measures.<\/p>\n
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\n1. The Legal DEI Project<\/p>\n
In the wake of anti-DEI efforts, four employment law experts created a resource for companies to clarify the legality of DEI initiatives. Launched in June 2025, The Legal DEI Project<\/a> offers a comprehensive FAQ on what discrimination laws both permit and require of employers.<\/p>\n The Legal DEI Project\u2019s four co-founders include law professors Rachel Arnow-Richman from the University of Florida Levin College of Law, Stephanie Bornstein from Loyola Law School, Tristin Green from Loyola Law School, and Deborah Widiss from Indiana University Maurer School of Law.<\/p>\n \u201cI believe academics have a public responsibility to share knowledge in times like these when honest information about the law is in short supply,\u201d Arnow-Richman told me in an email interview.<\/p>\n The Project\u2019s resources respond to President Donald Trump\u2019s executive orders, which the experts say mislead employers about their legal obligations, including the order issued on January 21, titled \u201cEnding Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe were concerned that the Trump administration\u2019s executive orders were confusing and could cause employers to overreact\u2014and understandably so,\u201d Bornstein told me in an email interview. \u201cBut executive orders don\u2019t change the law\u2014they are policy directives that apply only to federal workers and contractors. All the federal laws, and decades of caselaw, remain exactly the same as before President Trump took office.\u201d<\/p>\n To help employers make more informed decisions, The Legal DEI Project offers a risk assessment of the trade-offs that companies face from maintaining versus halting their diversity initiatives. \u201cBusinesses right now are in a hard situation,\u201d said Widiss. \u201cThe Trump administration has made it sound like anything associated with \u2018DEI\u2019 should be scrapped\u2014but if companies simply shut down all those offices, they may increase, rather than decrease, the likelihood they will be sued for failing to address discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n Retreating from DEI increases legal risk because well-designed programs help ensure fair and nondiscriminatory workplace decision making, according to The Legal DEI Project experts. Continuing DEI measures reduces legal risk because employers remain far more likely to be sued for discrimination by individuals from historically excluded groups than to be investigated by the government for diversity initiatives.<\/p>\n To help employers design effective DEI programs, The Legal DEI Project website includes a list of common measures that remain lawful. Permissible practices include broadening recruiting strategies to expand candidate pools, and collecting voluntary demographic data on applicants and employees to assess barriers to equal opportunity. Employers may continue inclusive employee mentoring programs and antiharassment trainings, both of which reduce rather than increase legal risk.<\/p>\n According to the Project\u2019s website, it also remains lawful\u2014and advisable\u2014for employers to reduce bias by linking hiring and performance evaluation criteria to objective job responsibilities and skills, using consistent interview questions and assessment rubrics, and publicizing promotion and advancement opportunities to all employees. Best practices also include evaluating the accessibility of physical, technological, and communication tools in the workplace.<\/p>\n 2. The Equal Employment Opportunity Leadership Group<\/p>\n Employers seeking to defend DEI practices against legal challenges may access free resources on the Equal Employment Opportunity Leadership Group<\/a> website, launched in February 2025.<\/p>\n The EEO Leadership Group is comprised of 11 former officials from the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the U.S. Department of Labor\u2019s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The EEOC is the agency responsible for enforcing federal employment discrimination laws. The OFCCP is the agency tasked with ensuring that federal contractors comply with equal employment opportunity laws.<\/p>\n The 11 former officials created their resource website to clarify the legal status of DEI initiatives and remind employers of their legal obligations, despite the Trump administration\u2019s curtailment of civil rights enforcement.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven the onslaught of attacks on civil rights in employment, we organized as former leaders of the EEOC and the OFCCP to monitor what this administration was doing and to provide accurate and timely responses that would help employers, employees, and the general public,\u201d said Chai R. Feldblum, former EEOC Commissioner and cofounder of the EEO Leadership Group, via email.<\/p>\n On the Group\u2019s website, employers may access the experts\u2019 written responses to actions by the EEOC\u2019s Acting Chair Andrea R. Lucas targeting corporate DEI initiatives<\/a>. One of the Group\u2019s goals is to ensure that employers understand that federal employment discrimination laws cannot be changed by anti-DEI executive orders or unilateral actions by the EEOC\u2019s Acting Chair.<\/p>\n \u201cThe legal right not to be discriminated against in employment cannot be taken away by a President or by an agency,\u201d said Feldblum. \u201cThe EEO Leadership Group provides employers information about what they are still required to do under the law, as well as what they are legally entitled to do in their efforts to increase DEI.\u201d<\/p>\n For example, the EEO Leadership Group website contains expert analysis<\/a> of Lucas\u2019s March 19, 2025 document<\/a> titled, \u201cWhat You Should Know About DEI-Related Discrimination at Work.\u201d The EEO Leadership Group\u2019s response describes Lucas\u2019s guidance as misleading employers<\/a> by overstating the legal risks of well-designed DEI initiatives and ignoring the need for DEI programs to ensure compliance with antidiscrimination laws.<\/p>\n The EEO Leadership Group website offers advice on lawful ways to design DEI programs, including trainings to promote inclusion and avoid harassment. The Group\u2019s resources explain how to lawfully implement employee resource or affinity groups, expand applicant recruiting pools, and collect workforce data to analyze barriers to equal opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe EEO Leadership Group also exists to provide employees with information about their rights under the law, despite efforts by this administration to undermine those rights,\u201d said Feldblum.<\/p>\n Even if federal agencies decline to enforce employment discrimination laws, employees may still file private lawsuits, which means that employers must stay apprised of their legal obligations.<\/p>\n 3. Catalyst And Meltzer Center 2025 Report On Legal DEI<\/p>\n