A franchised Coca-Coca bottler moved to dismiss a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit alleging that it discriminated against male employees by inviting female employees on a networking trip, according to court documents filed Monday.
Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast, Inc. said a New Hampshire federal district court should hold that the lawsuit failed to state a claim, arguing that the Women’s Forum event represented an affirmative effort to correct a gender imbalance within its workforce that is permitted under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act rather than prohibited by it.
The company identified “a manifest imbalance with regard to women in its workforce and took lawful, modest affirmative steps to remedy the issue so that women would enjoy more equal opportunity in the workplace,” it said.
EEOC claimed in its February lawsuit that the trip constituted an effective denial of equal access to opportunity, noting that participants were allegedly excused from their regular duties to participate in the trip but still paid their normal salary or wages to do so. Additionally, the exclusion of male employees adversely affected their status as employees on the basis of sex, EEOC alleged.
But EEOC’s lawsuit failed to allege a cognizable harm, even under the relaxed Title VII harm standard articulated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2024’s Muldrow v. City of St. Louis decision which struck down requirements that Title VII plaintiffs demonstrate “significant” harm, Coke Northeast claimed.
The fact that participants received benefits such as food, beverages and a one-night hotel stay for a one-time, one-day event and were paid their regular wages did not meet this standard, the defendants argued.
Instead, Coke Northeast said the Women’s Forum was supplemental to other recruitment efforts that targeted both male and female employees.
“The male employees were not disadvantaged regarding a term or condition of employment and were not disadvantaged in any way regarding opportunities for advancement,” Coke Northeast said. “Given the absence of harm as defined by Muldrow, the Complaint should be dismissed.”
The company also argued that it had a legal obligation to correct gender imbalances, citing a 1965 executive order which required federal contractors to do so. Though President Donald Trump revoked the executive order in question, he did so in January 2025, more than four months after the Women’s Forum took place, Coke Northeast said.
Should the district court decide not to grant dismissal, Coke Northeast asked that the court alternatively strike EEOC’s request for punitive damages.
The lawsuit is one of several filed by EEOC as it has pursued “reverse discrimination” litigation on behalf of majority-group plaintiffs. Chair Andrea Lucas openly called for White men to report workplace discrimination last December in a social media post, stating that the agency is committed to “eliminating” discrimination against White male employees and job applicants.
In a separate but related case, EEOC sued retail giant Nike in February to enforce an administrative subpoena as part of an investigation into alleged anti-White discrimination. The commission claimed that Nike’s goal of creating a “representative” workforce, under which it allegedly sought to fill greater percentages of its leadership-level and corporate workforce roles with racial and ethnic minorities, may have violated Title VII.