Canceled at the EEOC (again) | Center for Equal Opportunity

Commissioner Janet Dhillon of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) invited me to testify at a hearing on the “Civil Rights Implications of the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Then, just days before the April 28th hearing, she disinvited me.

Commissioner Dhillon’s invitation to me to participate in the hearing was not altogether surprising. At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic I led the civil rights program at the United States Department of Agriculture. I currently head an organization that promotes equal opportunity and antidiscrimination in all facets of American life. Dhillon’s disinvitation of me came as more of a shock.

A few days after providing my required written statement, which is available here, a member of Dhillon’s staff told me the Commissioner did not care for what she perceived as an “aggressive tone” and “name-checking.”

For example, I wrote that “Coca-Cola [now-former] General Counsel Bradley M. Gayton sent a letter threatening to reduce fees or to terminate altogether relationships with law firms that do not place a certain percentage of ‘diverse’ and ‘Black attorneys’ on legal work performed for the company.”

I also wrote that earlier in April “United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby announced that he was setting the year 2030 as the deadline for his goal to increase the proportion of women and minority pilot trainees in the airline’s academy to over 50%.” Both actions, I wrote, “[n]o matter one’s view on diversity and inclusion efforts generally” were “flatly discriminatory and violative of Title VII’s ban on race, color, and sex discrimination” that the EEOC is charged with enforcing.

Moreover, I called out government officials such as Colorado Governor Jared Polis for signing into law COVID-19 relief legislation that made small business owners like Etienne Hardre “ineligible because he was not a racial minority covered by the law.” I also “name-checked” federal officials such as President Joe Biden, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, and DOJ civil rights division acting head Pamela Karlan for making “announcements [that] indicate to the country that race, color, and sex-based law and policy is in vogue, will only increase, and is encouraging—if not pressuring—many institutions to support or engage in discriminatory activities for the sake of ‘equity.’”

That is all to say, Commissioner Dhillon balked at my referencing by name Fortune 100 companies, their executives, and major government officials who are violating the right of Americans to be treated equally under the law. I was told I needed to alter my testimony. When I respectfully declined to do so, I was canceled.

Quite an unprecedented action you might think. But, think again.

In 2006, the same thing happened to my predecessor as president and general counsel at the Center for Equal Opportunity, Roger Clegg. Former Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Lattman penned a column on that incident. In fact, as John J. Miller expounded at National Review, the entire hearing was cancelled because the EEOC career staff would “mutiny” if Mr. Clegg testified.

Fortunately for Mr. Clegg, the hearing was rescheduled and he was given the opportunity to provide his written statement and a supplement.

Even though my written statement submitted nearly 15 years later has the same theme as Mr. Clegg’s from 2006, I received no such reprieve. The April 28th hearing came and went with no mention of my cancelation and, to my knowledge, my written testimony does not appear in the official record of the proceedings.

What explains the recurrence of this bizarre and shameful phenomenon of silencing panelists who argue for equal protection of the law for all?

One thing that cannot explain it is partisan animus. Mr. Clegg was cancelled by George W. Bush-nominated chair Cari Dominguez. I was cancelled by Donald Trump-appointed now-former chair Janet Dhillon. In fact, the Biden-appointed and current EEOC chair Charlotte Burrows never expressed to me any objection to my written testimony and her staff was very gracious and accommodating.

The answer may be that, despite the best efforts of President Trump, “the swamp” has not been fully drained.

Many of us who served in the Trump administration, and our supporters across the country, understood that the swamp was populated by Democrats, Republicans, and every other political ideology. The goal encapsulated in the pithy slogan “drain the swamp” was to remove those officials who resisted reform and changes to the status quo not out of principle but instead, because they personally benefited from it. One could reasonably suspect that a lifetime corporate lawyer like Dhillon might understandably be weak-kneed about calling out former corporate friends and future employers.

Perhaps the most disgraceful thing about this incident is the request to me from Dhillon’s office to use my hospitalized father-in-law as the explanation for my not testifying. I declined that request, too.

For several weeks now, my wife’s father has been hospitalized because of severe health complications due to the COVID-19 pandemic. I shared this with Dhillon’s office not as a situation that would complicate my ability to testify but instead, as a reason why I felt compelled not to alter my testimony.

Indeed, as a result of COVID-19, my father-in-law who has owned a small business for over 30 years, will lose it. He, like the others I wrote about in my written testimony, would be ineligible for public COVID relief assistance in various jurisdictions around the country because he is a white man. He might also, as I also wrote about, be passed over for employment opportunities because he is a straight white man. And, ironically, as I also included in my written testimony, because he is white he would be pushed to the back of the line for COVID-19 vaccination in various locales.

My testimony was not aggressive. It was straight talk about the reality of the failure of our governments and other American institutions to treat everyone equally. It should be welcomed, not silenced, by a high government official whose job it is to enforce our civil rights laws.

Commissioner Dhillon should be ashamed and those who supported her nomination should be furious.

Devon Westhill Written Statement (EEOC 4.28)Download

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