Southwest Airlines is backing away from its diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring programs in response to legal action from a conservative organization.
The Department of Labor sent conservative group America First Legal a letter Tuesday after the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and Southwest held an informal conference to address the airline’s DEI hiring practices and America First Legal’s request for an investigation into alleged violations of federal contracting law.
The letter confirmed that Southwest is aware of OFCCP regulations that prevent hiring preferences or quotas. Southwest agreed that its hiring benchmarks were not quotas, rather they were metrics to measure representation in its existing workforce. If Southwest fails to meet its diversity hiring benchmarks, the company’s representatives promised to find ways of expanding workforce diversity without transgressing civil rights law, the letter says.
“Americans have had enough of corporations’ overt discrimination under the guise of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. It is unacceptable that corporations are so openly using everyday Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars to meet their unlawful race and sex quotas to achieve some ‘correct’ amount of diversity and representation,” said America First Legal counsel Will Scolinos
America First Legal filed a complaint with the OFCCP in January requesting an investigation into Southwest’s hiring practices to determine whether they are violating anti-discrimination laws for government contractors.
The complaint cites a Southwest corporate report from 2022 that touted its DEI hiring programs and the company’s demographic shifts. In 2022, 63 percent of Southwest’s 18,000 hires came from racially diverse backgrounds and 51 percent were women, boosting the airline’s racial and gender diversity.
America First Legal was concerned that Southwest was using racial and gender quotas to achieve those numbers and bolster its commitment to DEI. The report celebrates Southwest’s “evolving” hiring practices and a requirement for diverse candidates to be eligible for leadership positions.
According to America First Legal, the OFCCP investigation discovered a violation of anti-discrimination rules for government contractors, and the conference was held to sort out the issue.
“Southwest Airlines will continue to recruit, hire, and retain a diverse and inclusive workforce in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations. During an informal conference on Dec. 2, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) reiterated that Southwest should continue to abide by the regulations. OFCCP made no determination of any violations by the airline,” Southwest Airlines said in a statement.
DEI programs are left-wing initiatives that typically focus on people’s immutable characteristics over their character and talent. Conservative groups have filed numerous legal challenges to DEI initiatives for alleged violations of civil rights law through the prioritization of certain identity groups over others.
Some large corporations, especially those with red-state clientele, have walked back DEI activities in response to conservative pressure and the changing legal environment. The Supreme Court ruled last year that race-based college admissions policies are illegal under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Walmart is the most recent high-profile company to drop DEI programs because of political pressure with the incoming Trump administration expected to target DEI further. President-elect Donald Trump is expected to implement measures intended to roll pack progressive racial and gender policies common across American institutions.