Fred Lucas writes for the Daily Signal about the lingering negative impact of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion policies may only look dead in corporate America, as high-priced racial equity audits for some of the largest firms have become a lucrative industry for Democrat-leaning law firms, a watchdog group noted.
Two former attorneys general under the Obama administration—Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch—have led their respective firms’ efforts on the racial equity audits. Holder is a partner with the firm Covington & Burling. Lynch is the chairwoman of civil rights and racial equity audits at the firm of Paul, Wiess, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.
The National Legal and Policy Center noted the boon for the major law firms as the White House released a report examining the economic impact of DEI policies.
“Behind the scenes, DEI is not really dead. It’s more under the radar now, but many corporate executives are true believers,” Paul Chesser, director of the Corporate Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center, told The Daily Signal. “We’ve gone from grassroots rabble-rousers like Al Sharpton shaking down companies to white-shoe law firms run by former attorneys general.”
An NLPC analysis last week found that Holder was reportedly paid $2,295 per hour for a string of racial equity audits that began in 2021 at companies including Starbucks, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, BlackRock, Verizon, and Uber.
Lynch’s firm, Paul Weiss, bragged that it had “possibly the nation’s first dedicated legal team focused on conducting racial equity and other civil rights audits.” The firm conducted audits of Amazon and Chevron.
Another prominent firm, WilmerHale, also conducted racial equity audits of McDonald’s, Google, Home Depot, and Goldman Sachs, according to the NLPC.
The three law firms did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
Two of the corporations identified by the NLPC as paying for the audits told the Daily Signal they had no comment; others did not respond to requests for comment.
