A conservative legal group has filed a civil rights complain asking America’s anti-discrimination agency to investigate cereal company Kellogg’s over its diversity policies and programs.
America First Legal Foundation (AFL), a group spearheaded by Stephen Miller—one of the architects of the Trump administration’s infamous family separation policy, wants the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to probe Kellogg’s over its hiring practices. In a letter to the commission dated Aug. 9, the group accused the company of violating Title VII of the Constitution by engaging “in unlawful employment practices by seeking to ‘balance’ its workforce based on race, color, national origin, and sex.” The group alleged several of Kellogg’s “equity” diversity efforts are in fact “a euphemism for illegal discrimination.”
With affirmative action struck down at universities, conservatives have hinted that diversity and inclusion programs in corporate America could be next on the judicial hit list. Companies that are on Republicans’ radar have been toeing a tough line since.
The anti-diversity and inclusion push complements a growing wave of racist and anti-LGBTQ sentiment gripping red states. Entertainment behemoth Disney even pulled a billion-dollar project from Florida over state governor Ron DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ policies. AFL has also taken up a fight on that front, sending a separate letter to Kellogg’s board alleging that the company’s “management has discarded the Company’s long-held family-friendly marketing approach to politicize and sexualize its products.”
AFL criticized cereal boxes celebrating LGBTQ Pride Month and Cheez-It cracker boxes featuring drag queen RuPaul. The non-profit also called out a June 2023 photo where Frosted Flakes mascot Tony the Tiger posed alongside transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, whose campaign with Bud Light earlier this year became a flash point for right-wing outrage.
Quartz reached out to Kellogg’s for comment. “At Kellogg, our aspiration is to better reflect the diversity of our consumers and to strengthen our inclusive culture. We are committed to compliance with all applicable employment laws, and we have policies in place that prohibit workplace discrimination,” the company said in a statement to NBC News.
A non-exhaustive list of Kellogg’s diversity programs AFL takes issue with
For minorities. Kellogg’s “Better Days’ Promise” pledges to increase its share of underrepresented talent at management level in the US to 25% by the end of 2025, while its “accelerated development program” for racially underrepresented management-level talent. According to AFL, a 2 percentage points increase in the share of racially underrepresented talent across all position levels between 2020 and 2022, suggests Kellogg’s is “advancing favored groups at the expense of others because of their skin color.”
For Black chefs. Kellogg’s “Chef in Residence” program is a paid postgraduate fellowship encouraging Black chefs to work with Kellogg’s research and development team to help them better understand food’s role in Black communities worldwide. According to AFL, it “unlawfully” only lets Black or African American chefs apply, even if individuals of other races are otherwise qualified.
For women. Kellogg’s aspires to achieving 50-50 gender parity at management level by 2050, and has initiated a women-focused leadership development program called “ASPIRE”. Female representation has increased by 2 to 3 percentage points among the top brass in the past two years. “This is strong evidence that Kellogg’s is unlawfully preferring women in hiring, training, and promotions,” AFL wrote.
Non-profit of interest: AFL
AFL, the non-profit Miller started with former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows to challenge what they called a “radical activist left” agenda in April 2021, added Kellogg’s to a list of companies targeted for advertising their diversity and inclusion and sustainability practices—those that conservatives usually group under the “woke ideology” label. AFL has made it its mission to argue that these practices hurt companies’ bottom lines and hurt shareholders, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.
On Aug. 8, AFL sued big-box retailer Target for“betraying” customers and shareholders with “misleading representations about its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) mandates, and for causing Target shareholders to lose billions of dollars.” In recent months, the non-profit has gone after fashion retailer Nordstrom, airline Alaska Air, consumer goods conglomerate Unilever, confectionary company Mars, finance giant BlackRock, Bud Light parent AB InBev, chocolate-maker Hershey, e-commerce platform Amazon, fast food chain McDonalds, coffee shop chain Starbucks, and more, for alleged discriminatory hiring practices.
The non-profit’s campaigning efforts aren’t limited to America Inc. AFL has unleashed repeated attacks on the Biden administration. Most recently, it targeted the Department’s Office of Civil Rights “for appointing a new ‘coordinator’ to fortify government-run schools’ efforts to trample parental rights and promote vulgar gender-extremist books in the classroom.” After the affirmative action ruling, AFL sent letters to the deans of nearly all law schools and med schools in the US, “demanding that they cease discriminating based on race, sex, and national origin in admissions and faculty hiring.”
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