DEI opponents are using a 1866 Civil Rights law to challenge equity policies in the workplace

By ANNE D’INNOCENZIO and ALEXANDRA OLSON
AP Business Writers

NEW YORK (AP) — Opponents of diversity programs are increasingly banking on an 1866 civil rights law meant to protect Black people from economic exclusion as a way to challenge corporate diversity and equity policies as well as funding to Black-owned businesses. The cases are being monitored carefully as the battle over racial considerations shifts to the workplace following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June ruling ending affirmative action in college admissions. While the 1981 section of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 had been used well before the latest affirmative action ruling to prove reverse discrimination, an attorney for a venture capital fund aimed to help Black women said that there’s a “coordinated use of section 1981 now that we did not see before.”