Tennessee is investigating one of the world’s biggest accounting firms for its alleged diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring practices.
Last week, Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti launched a probe into Deloitte, considered part of the “Big Four” global accounting firms.
According to WKRN, the investigation centers on whether Deloitte established race-based or gender-based hiring quotas.
Brandon Smith, partner at Holtzman Vogel and former chief of staff for Skrmetti, told the outlet that Tennessee “is testing whether any past practices crossed the line under civil-rights law.”
“The document requests aim to see how policies were actually put into practice,” he said.
Tennessee is seeking information regarding “Deloitte’s emails, hiring records and policy documents dating as far back as 2022,” WKRN noted.
In 2022, the company launched its DEI Institute, which planned to provide information to businesses to help them “drive meaningful change in workforces, marketplaces, and society.”
Currently, Deloitte has six DEI pillars: “disability inclusion, LGBT+ inclusion, mental health, neurodiversity, race, ethnicity and indigenous communities, and women’s equity.”
On President Donald Trump’s first day of his second term, he signed an executive order ending DEI hiring practices within the federal government. Soon after, Deloitte announced that it was tweaking its DEI policies for employees working with the government, according to diversity.com.
In 2023, the Supreme Court overturned race-based college admissions in the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. University of North Carolina. The Court ruled Asian Americans’ constitutional rights were being violated.
After this ruling, Skrmetti and other attorneys general sent a letter to Fortune 100 CEOs telling them to refrain from using DEI policies.
“Treating people differently because of the color of their skin, even for benign purposes, is unlawful and wrong. Companies that engage in racial discrimination should and will face serious legal consequences,” they wrote.
The letter noted in the Supreme Court’s ruling recognizes “federal civil-rights statutes prohibiting private entities from engaging in race discrimination apply at least as broadly as the prohibition against race discrimination found in the Equal Protection Clause.”
– – –
Zachery Schmidt is the digital editor of The Star News Network. Email tips to Zachery at [email protected].
Photo “Deloitte Company” by Steven Damron. CC BY 2.0.
DEI = Division Exclusion Indoctrination or Didn’t Earn It.