Reed Smith ‘Retires’ DEI Label Following Trump Bias Inquiry (2)

Global law firm Reed Smith is doing away with the DEI branding for hiring and promotion in response to a workplace discrimination probe by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Reed Smith will “retire our DEI program,” global managing partner Casey Ryan said Tuesday in a firmwide email viewed by Bloomberg Law. The firm instead “will provide offerings going forward under the banner ‘Culture & Engagement,’” she said.

“Through Culture & Engagement, we will provide opportunities that are available to all and that foster a supportive and respectful workplace that attracts and retains top talent and maintains our strong sense of community,” said Ryan, who also leads the firm’s executive committee. Reed Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the change.

Reed Smith is one of 20 law firms targeted by the EEOC for alleged discrimination in their diversity programs, probes directed by President Donald Trump in a March 6 executive order.

The EEOC wants the firms to provide detailed information about hiring and promotions, job applicants, and individual attorneys. The agency also asked firms to name clients that require them to hit diversity targets for staffing on legal matters and to detail any incentives earned by meeting certain metrics. Firms were given until April 15 to respond.

Four firms that reached a settlement with the EEOC—Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and A&O Shearman—agreed to stop using the DEI label, according to the agency. The firms “agreed to no longer categorize any lawful employment or practices (including those addressing equal employment opportunity, accessibility, or reasonable accommodation for religion, disability, or pregnancy) as DEI; and agreed to compliance monitoring,” the EEOC said in a statement announcing the deal.

Reed Smith was not a part of that settlement. The firm “will be guided by the law and our commitment to be fully compliant with the law,” Ryan said in the email.

Trump has made the legal industry a target in his first months in office. The president’s broader war on DEI has seen many law firms make changes to diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

“Any entity that shifts the terminology around DEI programs without changing anything about how they administer those programs is engaged in a delay tactic, not a defensive tactic,” said Stacy Hawkins, a Rutgers University law professor.

“What has become abundantly clear based on the way the opposition is proceeding with its attacks on DEI is that they want to eliminate the underlying programs, not just force people to abandon the terms diversity, equity, or inclusion,” Hawkins said. “If programs are legally defensible, then it doesn’t matter what you call them.”

DLA Piper disbanded its minority organizations and affinity groups last month. Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom—which reached a deal to provide $100 million in pro bono services and pledged it would “not engage in illegal DEI discrimination” to avoid an executive order— removed affinity group event plans from its calendar for the remainder of the year.

“There’s no reason why many of the most effective DEI tools can’t be used,” in programs with different labels, said Joan Williams, a professor at the University of California College of the Law, San Francisco.

Firms should be careful to describe what they are changing if they alter the terminology they use to describe their programs, she said. “It’s important if you’re going to do this to message to your firm what this does mean and what this doesn’t mean.”