ABA Hit With Discrimination Claims Over DEI Hiring Programs (1)

Advocacy groups on Monday asked the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to investigate the American Bar Association over alleged bias in a diversity clerkship hiring program.

The ABA is violating federal law by targeting applicants for the program based on race, age, and sexual orientation, the groups said in an EEOC charge of discrimination. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty and American Civil Rights Project are among the groups who filed the charge, according to a statement.

The groups are ratcheting up their challenges to the program, which places law students in temporary jobs with judges across the country, following similar complaints that WILL filed with the Justice Department and Education Department last year. The ABA has since loosened its application requirements, but the groups say the organization continues to favor diverse students.

“At this stage, it seems irrefutable that the ABA’s continuance of these programs and continuation of these advertisements of these programs, all with their still-embedded discrimination, must qualify as intentional discrimination,” the groups told the EEOC.

The ABA declined to comment.

The new complaint comes as President Donald Trump ramps up attacks on a broad range of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Bar associations and law schools are among those targeted for scrutiny under an executive order calling for civil compliance investigations.

The EEOC is likely to be more receptive to these kinds of challenges in Trump’s second term. Andrea Lucas, a former Gibson Dunn lawyer tapped by Trump to serve as acting chair, has questioned the legality of corporate DEI programs and opposed certain workplace gender identity protections.

Law firms, nonprofits, and companies made changes to DEI policies after legal challenges from conservative groups, who were emboldened by the US Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to restrict the use of race in college admissions. The accreditation body at the American Bar Association is already tinkering with changes to how it describes its diversity rules for law schools. The State Bar of Wisconsin changed its definition of diversity in a clerkship program after facing a lawsuit from WILL.

“The ABA’s employment practices are flaunting the law and morality,” WILL attorney Skylar Croy said in a statement. “Regardless of race, creed, or background, everyone should be treated equally. Despite the initial successes at the federal level, the fight for true equality is far from over.”