EEOC demands DEI info from 20 major law firms

On March 6, 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order (EO) 14230, titled “Addressing Risk from Perkins Coie LLP,” which targets the law firm for representing Hillary Clinton by removing its security clearances and ordering federal contractors to disclose any business they do with the firm. A federal district judge issued an injunction in response to the request from Perkins Coie to block the administration’s “efforts to destroy the law firm.”

Law firms targeted

Section 4 of the EO directs the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to review practices of representative large, influential, or industry-leading law firms for consistency with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It also instructs the U.S. attorney general in coordination with the EEOC chair and in consultation with state attorneys general to investigate large law firms’ practices for compliance with race-based and sex-based nondiscrimination laws and take any additional actions the attorney general deems appropriate.

On Monday, March 17, 2025, Acting Chair of the EEOC Andrea Lucas issued a press release including a link to the letters she sent to 20 law firms claiming that based on public information gathered from the firms’ websites and other sources she determined that the DEI practices of the firms may violate Title VII.

In response to Lucas’s action, former Democratic EEOC commissioners, chairs, and general counsels sent a letter to her stating the EEOC has no authority to require information from employers under Title VII. The letter goes on to state: