Financial services firm Edward Jones is pushing back on a plaintiff’s request to pursue an employment lawsuit as a class.
The plaintiff in Winter v. Edward D. Jones & Co., a White man, alleged an Edward Jones diversity program was discriminatory and violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. At the center of the lawsuit is Edward Jones’ “Goodknight” program, which allegedly bestowed financial compensation on any veteran financial advisor if they transitioned a client relationship to a fellow advisor who is “female” or “diverse.”
The plaintiff claimed the program disadvantaged him and other similarly situated White male employees by incentivizing the transfer of a client to a female or “diverse” financial advisor — and therefore away from White males.
In the latest motion, Edward Jones took issue with changes in the plaintiff’s fourth amended complaint, which no longer concerns “straight, white male FAs,” but now “all white FAs.” “White females are the same FAs who, Plaintiff alleges, Edward Jones unlawfully favored through the challenged Goodknight program,” the company said. “This new conflict is self-evident and irreconcilable.”
Recent months have brought a number of highly publicized “reverse discrimination” lawsuits. Last year was marked by cases against 3M, Accenture, Clorox, IBM, Paramount and Warner Bros. Often these lawsuits involved accusations around diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Similar to the DEI-related rollbacks seen last year, these lawsuits may have been spurred by President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s enforcement of them.
Attorneys told HR Dive earlier this year they suspected that EEOC would focus on reverse bias cases. Most notably, EEOC brought a lawsuit against The New York Times on behalf of one of its White male editors.
The agency has also stopped its pursuit of disparate impact discrimination claims and has rescinded affirmative action guidelines.
Despite the Winter plaintiff’s claims of favorable treatment toward “diverse” employees, Edward Jones is also facing a lawsuit from Black FAs alleging they were paid less than their White peers.