A conservative legal group headed by Stephen Miller, a former White House advisor to Donald Trump, has accused Macy's of implementing a racially discriminatory diversity plan.
America First Legal filed a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on Tuesday, according to a press release.
The complaint alleges Macy's is "intentionally and systemically" violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964's prohibition on race discrimination, citing a five-point diversity plan that the retailer released in 2019.
Newsweek has contacted Macy's for comment via email. This article will be updated if a response is received.
Macy's plan instructed management to achieve "more ethnic diversity by 2025 at senior director level and above, with a goal of 30 percent," and create a 12-month program to "designed to strengthen leadership skills for a selected group of top-talent managers and directors of Black/African-American, Hispanic-Latinx, Native American and Asian descent," the group said in its letter to the EEOC.
AFL alleged that Macy's quotas are "patently illegal" and that the retailer "has only reinforced its commitments to recruitment and hiring policies that likely violate federal law" in the past year.
In the letter, AFL asked EEOC to file a "commissioner charge" against Macy's. Such charges, which can be filed by any of the five members of the agency's leadership panel, are relatively rare, with only 29 filed in the 2022 fiscal year, up from only 3 in each of the previous two years.
AFL also sent a letter to Macy's chairman and board of directors, writing it was alerting them to "apparent mismanagement that threatens the waste of company assets, institutional disregard for and violations of federal civil rights laws, and breaches of fiduciary duty."
Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions in June, AFL appears to have increasingly taken aim at corporate diversity efforts.
AFL has filed complaints with the EEOC about a number of major U.S. companies, including Starbucks, McDonald's and Anheuser-Busch, which are among those that that it has designated as "woke corporations" on its website.
The EEOC has not responded to the group's claim that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts violate Title VII.
AFL shared details of the complaint on X, formerly Twitter, saying Americans should know that Macy's "appears to maintain politicize that perpetuate illegal racial discrimination—denying career advancement to white straight men" before tuning into Macy's annual Thanksgiving Day parade or going Black Friday shopping.
"Macy's own public-facing materials all but acknowledge that they are engaging in personnel practices that violate federal law," John A. Zadrozny, AFL deputy director of oversight and investigations, said in a statement.
"Because of this, Macy's is now going to have to explain to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission why they have chosen to become a civil rights violator. It is our hope that Macy's takes this opportunity to correct its unlawful and egregious conduct as soon as possible."
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