The ACR Project, FASORP, WILL, and CEO File Wide-Sweeping Title VII Charge Against the ABA
The ACR Project, for Faculty, Alumni, & Students Opposed to Racial Preferences, joined today with the Center for Equal Opportunity and Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, Inc. to file with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission a Title VII charge against the American Bar Association. You can read the full document, below. This filing comes on the heels of the Trump Administration’s actions to eliminate discrimination and embrace color-blind merit.
Despite the ACR Project, CEO, and WILL’s prior warnings, the ABA continues to violate Title VII. The ABA’s illegal programs discriminate based on race and sex in employment. Most prominently, the ABA illegally qualifies and disqualifies applicants through these forbidden criteria for judicial clerkships it fills and funds.
FASORP members are ready and able to apply for these programs. They have not done so when their published eligibility requirements openly discriminate against applicants based on their demography.
Explained ACR Project Executive Director Dan Morenoff: “The plainest of black letter law forbids the ABA from deciding whom to employ based on race and sex, from deciding whom to train based on race and sex, from deciding whom to place into employment or training programs based on race and sex, and from advertising that it will do so. It’s hard to imagine a clearer case of illegal behavior or an organization that should more clearly know better.”
WILL Associate Counsel Skylar Croy added: “The ABA’s employment practices are flaunting the law and morality. Regardless of race, creed, or background, everyone should be treated equally. Despite the initial successes at the federal level, the fight for true equality is far from over. That’s why WILL has partnered with these esteemed organizations to make clear to the ABA that enough is enough.”
As an employer and a recipient of federal funds, the ABA is subject to laws prohibiting discrimination. Last January, the ACR Project and CEO warned it that its Diversity Clerkship Program violated Title VII. In May, WILL filed a Title VI complaint challenging that and several other discriminatory ABA programs. This new charge cites this history as proof of the ABA knowing that its programs violate longstanding law.
The ACR Project and WILL anticipate that the EEOC will take corrective action against the ABA. Should it not do so, the ACR Project anticipates taking further action on behalf of FASORP to bring the ABA into compliance with American nondiscrimination law.