Head of workplace rights agency urges white men to report discrimination

FILE - Andrea Lucas, nominee to be a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, testifies during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing, June 18, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Photo by Mariam Zuhaib /AP

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The head of the U.S. agency for enforcing workplace civil rights posted a social media call-out urging white men to come forward if they have experienced race or sex discrimination at work.

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“Are you a white male who has experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws,” U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Chair Andrea Lucas, a vocal critic of DEI, wrote on X Wednesday evening. The post urged eligible workers to reach out to the agency “as soon as possible” and referred users to the agency’s fact sheet on “DEI-related discrimination” for more information.

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That document has been criticized by former agency commissioners as misleading for portraying DEI initiatives as legally fraught when “employers lawfully may — and indeed should _ take proactive steps to identify barriers that have limited the opportunities of applicants and employees based on any protected characteristic.”

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Lucas’ post, viewed millions of times, was shared about two hours after Vice President JD Vance posted an article he said “describes the evil of DEI and its consequences,” which also received millions of views. Lucas responded to Vance’s post saying: “Absolutely right ↕JDVance. And precisely because this widespread, systemic, unlawful discrimination primarily harmed white men, elites didn’t just turn a blind eye; they celebrated it. Absolutely unacceptable; unlawful; immoral.”

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She added that the EEOC “won’t rest until this discrimination is eliminated.” Neither the agency nor Vance responded immediately to requests for additional comment.

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David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the NYU School of Law, said the social media posts demonstrate a “fundamental misunderstanding of what DEI is.”

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Opponents of DEI “tend to frame it as a set of illegal preferences,” Glasgow said. “It’s really much more about creating a culture in which you get the most out of everyone who you’re bringing on board, where everyone experiences fairness and equal opportunity, including white men and members of other groups.”

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The Meltzer Center tracks lawsuits that are likely to affect workplace DEI practices, including 57 cases of workplace discrimination. Although there are instances in which it occurs on a case-by-case basis, Glasgow said he has not seen “any kind of systematic evidence that white men are being discriminated against.”

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He pointed out that Fortune 500 CEOs are overwhelmingly white men, and that, relative to their share of the population, the demographic is overrepresented in corporate senior leadership, Congress, and beyond.

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“If DEI has been this engine of discrimination against white men, I have to say it hasn’t really been doing a very good job at achieving that,” Glasgow said.

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Lucas announced in January when she was named acting chair that “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination” would be a priority. And although she lacked the agency majority needed to go full throttle until the EEOC regained a quorum in October, she has still aggressively pursued that goal.