Few things are associated as closely with Thanksgiving as the vaunted New York City holiday parade sponsored by Macy’s.
But as America celebrates a holiday devoted to finding common ground under the auspices of friendship, a legal group founded by associates of former President Donald Trump accuses Macy’s of promoting divisive, anti-white discrimination.
In a press release issued earlier this week, America First Legal, co-founded and led by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller, announced that it had filed a complaint against Macy’s with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, maintaining that the company violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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In a statement, John Zadrozny, America First Legal deputy director of oversight and investigations, said, “Macy’s has, sadly, joined a long list of storied American companies that now prioritize racism over rights. Macy’s own public-facing materials all but acknowledge that they are engaging in personnel practices that violate federal law.”
“Because of this,” he continued, “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.”
ALF cited a 2019 press release by Macy’s proclaiming its new “bold vision to advance diversity and inclusion and ensure the company reflects the diversity of the customers and communities served.”
Macy’s developed a five-point plan that included “specific directives” to achieve “greater diversity for all aspects of the company’s business model,” ALF said in the release.
According to the plan, Macy’s executives world work toward “more ethnic diversity by 2025 at senior director level and above,” setting a goal of 30% minorities within that group, as well initiating a year-long program called MOSAIC 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.”
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Another part of Macy’s plan called for a requirement for half of its advertising to feature “gender/gender identity, age, size, and differently abled subjects” by 2020.
Macy’s leadership wanted its ads to “reflect and reach the full spectrum” of its customers’ identities, and that would also apply to the “stylists, photographers, directors, producers, agencies, content providers and event partners” that it hires.
The company also wanted to “drive growth with under-represented suppliers,” according to the plan, by spending at least 5% of its inventory expenses on vendors who are “ethnically diverse, women-, veteran-, and LGBTQ-owned.”
“Quotas such as these are patently illegal under the law,” ALF argued in the release.
“In the last year, Macy’s has only reinforced its commitments to recruitment and hiring policies that likely violate federal law,” ALF continued.
Its 2022 “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Annual Report,” for example, emphasized that Macy’s is committed to a “systemic approach to achieving full representation” among its workforce.
The report highlighted statistics showing the ratio of its corporate board according to sex and “non-white” members, and that Macy’s promotes an “ethnic representation goal” for those at director level and above as part of the company’s annual salary-bonus calculation.
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ALF noted that Macy’s leadership toils to “embed” diversity, inclusion, and equity principles “in all aspects of how Macy’s ‘think[s], act[s], and operate[s].’”
“The combination of its explicit comments about retention, recruitment, and hiring based on immutable characteristics and its fixation on internal employment statistics that focus on employees’ immutable characteristics demonstrates a facial violation of Title VII,” ALF argued.
“These practices are repugnant, outrageous, and illegal, and Macy’s should be prepared to explain to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission why it has chosen this destructive path.”
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