The home furnishing giant Williams-Sonoma has been slapped with a complaint over its aggressive diversity-hiring push, which has led to an outsize number of women and minorities among its workforce.
The San Francisco-based company, which is behind such popular brands as West Elm and Pottery Barn, is under fire over the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts outlined in its 2024 annual report.
America First Legal (AFL), a conservative group, alleges in a complaint to the federal government’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that the firm’s DEI hiring practices amount to ‘unlawful’ discrimination.
‘Woke corporations’ toxic, divisive, and unlawful DEI policies are a clear and present danger to the constitution’s guarantee of legal equality,’ said AFL’s lawyer, Reed Rubinstein, who is leading the complaint.
The $8-billion-a-year retail giant did not answer The Mail’s request for comment.
The home furnishing titan Williams-Sonoma has been hit with a complaint over its diversity-hiring push.
The San Francisco-based company is headed by its $24 million-a-year CEO Laura Alber
DEI is front-line issue in America’s culture wars. Advocates say it helps get more women and minorities into jobs and colleges. Critics say it unfairly denies opportunities to others, who may be better candidates.
Reed Rubinstein, an AFL lawyer
According to the complaint, Williams-Sonoma uses race, sex, and nationality of job applicants as a way to help decide whether to hire and promote candidates, and to which external firms it awards contracts.
The company’s recent annual report boasts that an aggressive DEI push has led to women making up 68 percent of its workforce, and with 41 percent hailing from an ‘ethnic minority group.’
The same goes for the leadership of the company, which is headed by the $24 million-a-year CEO Laura Alber — 57 percent of board members are women, and 29 percent are classed as ‘diverse.’
In other filings, the company says it is working at ‘increasing black representation across our company,’ as well as in deciding upon which vendors to award contracts.
Though such statements appear uncontroversial to many and common across corporate America, AFL asserts that they are illegal, as it’s never acceptable to dole out jobs and contracts based on skin color.
AFL also wrote to the company’s board, urging members to abandon their DEI work, and pointing to Disney and Target among a growing list of companies that have faced an anti-DEI backlash from conservatives.
Its DEI efforts are ‘legally suspect and highly controversial’ and create ‘material market and reputational risk,’ says AFL.
‘Incantations of ‘inclusion and belonging’ do not relieve corporate boards from their fiduciary obligation to comply with anti-discrimination laws,’ said Rubinstein.
He slammed the company’s ‘leftist managers’ for their ‘idiosyncratic and frankly un-American political and social views.’
The EEOC, which enforces laws against workplace discrimination, does not have to act on complaints, which have shot up in recent years.
AFL has filed complaints with the EEOC targeting workplace diversity schemes by the NFL, Major League Baseball and dozens of companies, including Starbucks, McDonald’s, Morgan Stanley, Activision Blizzard and Kellogg.
Many companies that embraced DEI policies in the wake of the cop killing of unarmed black man George Floyd in May 2020 have stepped back from them for fear of irking conservative customers.
Williams-Sonoma is behind such popular brands as West Elm
Pottery Barn and its various subdivisions are also run by Williams-Sonoma
Some businesses have received public shareholder letters since 2021 saying their DEI schemes amount to illegal discrimination and breach directors’ duties to investors.
Anti-DEI groups were energized by the US Supreme Court ruling in June 2023 that struck down affirmative action in university admissions, a ruling that does not directly affect employers.
Former president Donald Trump, the Republican candidate for US president, has been highly critical of DEI initiatives.
For some, DEI schemes are important and necessary, as they can help to overcome historical racism and sexism and make it easier for people of all backgrounds to get ahead in education and work.
Critics say it’s a form of reverse discrimination that unfairly blows back on straight, white men and others.
Others say DEI schemes may be well-intentioned, but seldom achieve their desired goals and that mandatory workshops on ‘micro-aggressions’ and ‘white fragility’ often make things worse by stirring up divisions in offices and classrooms.
An Ipsos poll in April found that 61 percent of voters called DEI a ‘good thing.’
Still, a Gallup survey from around the same time found that only 38 percent of people wanted businesses to be taking a stance on current events — a drop of 10 percentage points from 2022.
