When has the court upheld a policy of setting a specific percentage racial or gender quota, and penalizing employees financially if that quota is not met? If I told my employees "I'll reduce your pay by 90% if you hire any pregnant women" that's not discrimination against gender and family status? You really think a court would buy this argument? Of course, 90% is a much bigger proportion of salary than the DEI bonuses in the example above, but fundamentally this is no different of a policy - it's still tying compensation to the protected class of hired candidates.
And again, you're still glossing over the other two examples: A manager at YouTube explicitly directed a recruiter to only proceed with diverse applicants. And Perkins Coie did, in fact, restrict eligibility for its fellowship program on the basis of race and sexual orientation (this was settled in 2023 after they agreed to stop discriminating. The 2025 judgement you linked above doesn't in any way defend Perkins Coie's hiring policies, only that Trump couldn't further punish them by banning them from federal buildings).
> When has the court upheld a policy of setting a specific percentage racial or gender quota, and penalizing employees financially if that quota is not met?
Irrelevant.
> And again, you're still glossing over the other two examples
Two examples is not a pervasive problem in my opinion, so it's super easy to gloss over.
What is a pervasive problem is the tables being very tilted against certain groups of people.
If the courts haven't found in favor of companies using quotas as incentives, then you have no basis to claim that that quotas are legally acceptable as long as they're framed as incentives. This is directly relevant to your claims.
I find it noteworthy how often proponents of DEI talk in vague, euphemistic terms. You left me to guess what you mean by "certain groups of people". The group that I've witnessed benefit the most from DEI in tech companies is women - not Black people, or poor people. And the experimental evidence on the gender disparity in tech company recruiting does not back up the idea that women are disadvantaged when it comes to applying to tech companies: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID3946621_cod...
> If the courts haven't found in favor of companies using quotas as incentives
The courts don’t conflate these activities and as we’ve discussed, recruiting incentives related to broadening the applicant pool are perfectly legal and proper. This has nothing to do with hiring unqualified people based on identity as you imply. Hope this helps.
> The courts don’t conflate these activities and as we’ve discussed
Again, what is the basis of this statement? You're not actually backing this claim up with anything, you're just postulating it as fact. From what I can find, companies are being sued for this practice: https://nfclegal.com/dei-legal-development-spotlight-warm-up...
> Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit accusing Starbucks Corp. of violating state civil rights through its DEI policies by: ... Tying executive compensation to participation in race-based mentorship programs and race-based employee retention rates; and
I have not been able to find a single instance of a company successfully defending a policy of tying compensation to race and gender quotas. Your claim that the courts have given the green light on tying compensation to racial and gender quotas is not the consensus I'm finding.
> recruiting incentives related to broadening the applicant pool are perfectly legal and proper.
Tying compensation to quotas also incentivizes narrowing the applicant pool to exclude the demographic that doesn't belong to the quota. Again, if I told my employees, "I'm docking your pay if you hire any pregnant women", am I broadening the applicant pool to include more non-pregnant people? Or am I incentivizing them to narrow the applicant pool to exclude pregnant women? "Diversity goals" and caps are two sides of the same coin. Tying a bonus to a diversity goal X% women is the same as instituting a penalty if a cap of (100-X)% men is exceeded.
Remember, Microsoft and Intel tied quotas to proportional representation. If I have 8 men and 2 women on my candidate docket, and I need to reach 40% women, I could try and attract 3 more female applicants. But if the desired female applicants don't materialize, I could also decline to hire some of the men to push women's proportional representation up enough to reach the 40% quota. I can't guarantee whether more women apply to join the team, but I can unilaterally decline to move forward with some of the men.
> This has nothing to do with hiring unqualified people based on identity as you imply
Where did I write about unqualified people getting hired? I've re-read my comments twice, and nowhere do I imply that people are hired based on identify characteristics.
I've found that this is a common theme among DEI proponents: try and imply that people who highlight the existence of discriminatory policies as denigrating the qualifications of the groups favored by DEI preferences. I have generally not witnessed unqualified applicants being hired on account of DEI discrimination, rather it's mostly qualified men that aren't getting interviewed in order to prop up female representation percentages.
And for the fifth time, incentives and quotas are not mutually exclusive. A company can create incentives that are implemented through quotas.
"Your salary is $100k. If you don't meet a quota of X% women I'm reducing your pay by $50k."
"Your salary is $50k. But I'm offering an incentive of $50k if you meet a quo... - excuse me - diversity goal of X% women."
You can keep repeating that this isn't a quota as long as you call it an "incentive", but anyone engaging in good faith sees it for what it is: it's setting a specific numeric quota on the basis of protected class, and penalizing workers who don't meet that quota.
> The United States alleged that IBM took race, color, national origin, or sex into account when making employment decisions, including by using a diversity modifier that tied bonus compensation to achieving demographic targets.
Bigotry does not mean an automatic win at court. I continue to be impressed at the mental gymnastics you're willing to jump through to rationalize the belief that tying compensation to racial and gender quotas is legal. It doesn't matter that companies are being sued and paying out settlements for their illegal DEI practices, it's all just a conspiracy!
That's how the law sees it.