Tyler Lynn, a Spanish instructor in Eagle Point, Ore., says he’s out $192 because a state rebate to renew teaching licenses is not available to him, a White man whose native tongue is English. So he’s suing to open the program to all.
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State and local programs benefitting underrepresented groups in a range of professions have become ripe targets for conservative activist
Lynn is one of a half-dozen plaintiffs who have launched challenges in recent months against state programs meant to increase racial and ethnic diversity across a range of professions, from teaching to farming to podiatry. Their lawsuits represent the latest front in a conservative campaign to roll back affirmative action programs in government and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the corporate world since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned race-conscious college admissions last year.
Such programs are ripe targets, legal experts say, in part because nearly every state and locality has one or more that benefit women, minorities and other underrepresented groups. They typically offer financial benefits like Oregon’s teachers rebate, or greater opportunity to pull the levers of power on government boards and commissions. But now their legal justification — that government has a “compelling interest” to remedy past or ongoing discrimination — is undergoing a radical reexamination in American society.
On Tuesday, a federal judge in Texas ordered a federal agency created to help minority-owned businesses access capital and government contracts to open its doors to everyone, including White business owners. U.S. District Judge Mark T. Pittman, a Trump appointee, ruled that the government’s reliance on broad racial categories to assist such businesses was unconstitutional.
If courts extend that logic to similarly styled state programs, it could force a fundamental shift in “legislatures to reevaluate how they achieve this type of diversity,” said Marcus A.R. Childress, an attorney with Jenner & Block and a member of the firm’s DEI Protection Task Force.
