McDonald’s is facing a lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in one of its scholarship programs, which restricts eligibility to Latino and Hispanic students.
The American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER), which initiated the lawsuit, stands against affirmative action. AAER filed the case on Jan. 12, shortly after McDonald’s ditched some of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies. McDonald’s cited the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action as a factor in the changes to its DEI policies.
Despite those revisions, which included changing the McDonald’s DEI team, the fast food giant kept in place its HACER scholarship program despite its racially exclusionary nature.
To date, McDonald’s has given out more than $33 million as part of the program.
AAER noted in a press release announcing the lawsuit that McDonald’s “didn’t really mean it” when it made a new commitment to “trea[t] everyone with dignity, fairness and respect, always” upon curbing its DEI policies.
“It is important to note that these kinds of racially exclusive scholarships and fellowships were illegal even before the Supreme Court opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard,” AAER President Edward Blum told Campus Reform.
“Race exclusive endeavors have been actionable in court for decades, so it would be wise for corporations, cultural institutions, and other organizations to revisit any programs or policies that are racially exclusive,” he added.
The legal complaint quotes a passage from the Supreme Court’s ruling against affirmative action: “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” It continues: “No racial discrimination is benign: It always ‘demeans the dignity and worth’ of individuals ‘to be judged’ by their race or ethnicity instead of their ‘own merit and essential qualities.’”
Blum also reiterated to Campus Reform his statement published in AAER’s press release: “It is our hope that McDonald’s immediately pauses this scholarship program so it can be opened to all under-resourced high school students regardless of their ethnic heritage.”
Several other major corporations have also recently reformed their DEI efforts as part of a growing trend across the country.
On Jan. 13, for example, the social media company Meta announced the elimination of certain DEI practices as “the legal and policy landscape surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the United States is changing.”
Campus Reform has contacted McDonald’s for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
This article was originally published at campusreform.org
