THE Trump administration is urging white men who believe they have been discriminated against at work to file federal complaints, marking the latest escalation in its campaign against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
The message came from Andrea Lucas, the acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, who posted on social media this week calling on white male workers to pursue claims under existing civil rights laws.
“Are you a white male who's experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex?” AFP reported Lucas writing. “You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws.”
She said the EEOC remained focused on enforcing the law without exception.
“The EEOC is committed to identifying, attacking, and eliminating ALL race and sex discrimination – including against white male employees and applicants.”
The EEOC is a federal agency established under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to combat workplace discrimination on the basis of race and sex, legislation that was originally aimed at dismantling entrenched segregation and discrimination against Black Americans.
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has moved to dismantle DEI programmes across the federal government and has warned private companies against maintaining such policies, arguing that they disadvantage America’s white majority.
Under the current administration, the EEOC has begun highlighting what it calls “DEI-related discrimination” on its website, while Trump has rolled back affirmative action policies put in place by previous administrations.
Many DEI programmes, originally designed to address systemic discrimination against minorities, are now labelled as “woke” by conservatives and portrayed as unlawful or exclusionary.
Under Lucas’s leadership, the EEOC has also shifted attention towards what it describes as discrimination against American workers in favour of migrants.
“Many employers have policies and practices preferring illegal aliens, migrant workers, or non-immigrant guest workers (guest worker visa holders) over American workers – in direct violation of federal employment law,” she said in a statement last month.
Media reports have also suggested the agency has stopped pursuing complaints involving workplace discrimination against transgender people, another group that has been targeted by the Trump administration.
Lucas’s call for white men to file claims was amplified by Vice President JD Vance, who shared her post online.
In a separate message, Vance linked to a column by a Hollywood screenwriter who said he had been denied work because he was a young white man. Vance wrote that DEI “was a deliberate program of discrimination primarily against white men.”
Lucas publicly agreed with the vice-president’s assessment.
“And precisely because this widespread, systemic, unlawful discrimination primarily harmed white men, elites didn't just turn a blind eye; they celebrated it,” she wrote.
Existing data, however, point to long-standing disparities affecting minority and female workers. A study by the University of Massachusetts Amherst found that African American employees file complaints with the EEOC at a rate 195 times higher than white employees.
Separate data from the Pew Research Center showed that women earned an average of 85 per cent of what men earned last year, underscoring persistent gender pay gaps in the US workforce. - December 19, 2025
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