Since 2023, courts have ruled that (1) race-conscious college admission selection policies violate the U.S. Constitution,(1) (2) the Civil Rights Act protects against discriminatory job transfers,(2) (3) offering grants only to minority entrepreneurs is likely to violate the Civil Rights Act,(3) and (4) there is no higher burden for “reverse” discrimination claims.(4) Resultant, the legality of corporate DEI programs have been called into question, raising litigation risks. (5) Further, the White House has signaled that it is opposed to DEI initiatives.(6) In light of these risks, other companies have revised or ended their own DEI programs.(7)
Despite these risks, Intuit continues to engage in practices which expose it to litigation risk:
•Intuit maintains 15 employee resource groups that divide employees on the basis of race, sex, and gender identity.(8)
•Intuit maintains a commitment to “have a workforce that reflects the customers we serve,” even though this likely requires discrimination.(9)
•Intuit has scored 100% on the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which arguably requires discrimination based on sexual orientation.(10)
•Intuit maintains an Equal Employment Opportunity Policy that fails to expressly protect viewpoint diversity.(11)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the 1792 Exchange has labelled Intuit a “high risk” for corporate political bias,(12) while Intuit only scores 12% on the ADF’s metric evaluating viewpoint diversity protection.(13)
Meanwhile, Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance at London Business School, has noted that: “There is no link between demographic diversity and performance, despite many flimsy reports claiming the contrary.... Indeed, the evidence is that quota-driven demographic diversity reduces performance.”(14)
Critically, Intuit reported 18,200 employees last year.(15) Given that in 2023 Starbucks was reportedly successfully sued for $25.6 million for a single case of “reverse discrimination,”(16) if even just 0.1% of Intuit’s filed successful discrimination claims the damages could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, not to mention reputational costs. (Note that Missouri recently also sued Starbucks, alleging the company’s DEI initiatives violate anti-discrimination laws.)(17)
It has been noted in the Harvard Business Review that “before anyone writes a check, you need to calculate the return on investment.”(18) Given all the foregoing, shareholders deserve to know how Intuit justifies the risks of its D&I initiatives in terms of expected ROI.