Dive Brief:
- A coalition of five groups filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration Monday, arguing President Donald Trump’s March 26 executive order targeting DEI activities among federal contractors violates plaintiffs’ free speech, free association and due process rights (National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education v. Trump).
- The plaintiffs argued they could not engage in protected expression or association related to race or ethnicity without facing cancelled or denied contracts, loss of opportunity or legal punishment, in alleged violation of the First Amendment, and that the president’s threat to use the False Claims Act exceeds his authority.
- “The president’s executive order defies both the law and reality,” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, the legal group representing the plaintiffs. “This order … would have disastrous consequences for workers doing the public’s business throughout the country, but also for the millions of people who rely on the work and services contractors, subcontractors, their employees, and partners provide.”
Dive Insight:
Per the plaintiffs’ argument, the order conflates all diversity, equity and inclusion activities with “racial discrimination,” making DEI activities broadly illegal.
“By equating expression on race and ethnicity with ‘DEI,’ the Contractors Order reaches a substantial amount of protected expression, including lawful remedial efforts, that touches on race without excluding or classifying individuals based on race,” the plaintiffs wrote. They further added that even activities that do classify individuals by race are lawful “so long as they seek to remedy discrimination and are narrowly tailored to that interest.”
The groups noted that the executive order appears to forbid a variety of regular activities that they said comply with antidiscrimination law, including voluntary or nonexclusive gatherings of employees that are tied to race or ethnicity, even if such gatherings are open to all; programming or support for contractors or employees of contractors who may face challenges based on race or ethnicity; events at which a speaker may discuss race- or ethnicity-based challenges they have experienced generally or in their industry; targeted recruitment or advertising designed to expand access to nonexclusionary opportunities; and more.
The groups bringing the lawsuit include the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education; the American Association of University Professors; the United Academies of Maryland-University of Maryland, College Park; the National Association of Minority Contractors; and the National Association of Minority Contractors, DMV chapter.
The complaint noted that NAMC-DMV has “already heard from some sponsors,” mainly large construction companies, that have expressed concerns that they cannot provide financial support under the order. “Ninety percent of NAMC–DMV’s operating expenses come from these sponsors,” the complaint said. “Losing their support would be devastating.”
The White House has pushed back on the lawsuit.
“President Trump promised the American people to eliminate the scourge of DEI from American society and he is delivering on that promise every single day by ensuring that every American, regardless of race, is treated equally,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in a comment to HR Dive. “The President’s actions to this end are lawful and well within his executive authority, no matter what left-wing organizations run by hacks like Marc Elias have to say about it.”
Trump’s March 26 executive order is the latest from the administration seeking to tamp down on DEI activities in both the public and private sectors.
The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education — the lead plaintiff challenging the March 26 order — also filed a lawsuit challenging anti-DEI executive orders from 2025 on constitutional grounds. While a Maryland district court, the same court considering Monday’s lawsuit, placed a preliminary injunction on the orders in February 2025, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stayed that decision and vacated it nearly a year later, finding the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge one of the provisions.