Starbucks sued for discrimination after implementing 'racial equity' policies recommended by Obama's former AG Eric Holder: report

The policies Starbucks implemented, on the recommendation of former Obama Administraion Attorney General Eric Holder, may have been what led the company to be sued for racial discrimination. 

In 2018, before the uptick in diversity programs launched after the death of George Floyd, an employee at Starbucks had mistakenly called the police on two black men. 

In response to the incident, the CEO of the company made an apology that stated "We will learn from this and be better." A "multi-phase effort" was then launched in response, for the purpose of "anti-bias training efforts."

A portion of the anti-bias training was done by Covington and Burling, a law firm in Washington DC, according to the a report of the training. Eric Holder, who has gotten paid up to $2,295 an hour for similar services, issued the report from Covington and Burling to Starbucks. 

Holder reportedly never addressed the potential legal issues that could stem from the recommendations in the report. 

One year later, a civil rights lawsuit from a conservative nonprofit, the National Center for Public Policy Reseach (NCPPR), challenged the practices that were implemented by Starbucks with advice given to the company by Holder and the law firm. 

“Starbucks has set goals for the number of ‘diverse’ - meaning not-white - employees it hires, and those goals are tied to executive compensation. That is outright racial discrimination,” Scott Shepard, the director of NCPPR said the press release for the lawsuit. "Officers and directors who act on such discriminatory policies are violating their fiduciary duties to their shareholders and should be held accountable for those actions.”

Covington and Burling gave further "racial equity audit[s]" to other clietns. These included BlackRock, Citigroup, and Verizon. Similar recommendations were provided. 

Noah Peters, a former solicior of the Federal Labor Relations Authority, told the Washington Free Beacon that the programs that have been implemented like the ones at Starbucks "are lawsuits waiting to happen."