DEI, climate agenda advanced through progressive-backed lawsuits, new report claims

EXCLUSIVE: A new report from Alliance for Consumers (AFC) argues that progressive, often climate-change-related, activism and aligned trial lawyers are increasingly using lawsuits not to win big dollars but big change.

Since the waning years of the Obama administration, AFC said that courtrooms have become the "battleground" for the political left’s campaign to "reshape American society" through "strategic litigation." 

AFC analyzed employment discrimination cases, environmental suits and corporate governance litigation and found that the outcomes, or sought-after outcomes, demonstrated a pattern of courtroom strategy meant to deliver policy changes that the left has been unable to achieve through state or federal legislation — particularly regarding DEI and climate.

"If you really want to understand a substantial portion of why corporate America went really woke, there's a story that can be told," O.H. Skinner, AFC’s executive director, told Fox News Digital.

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Skinner said that corporate America believed President Barack Obama would be followed by "President Hillary Clinton" — demonstrating continuity in many of these policy fields — leading to people leaving civil service jobs to join corporate HR and legal departments and bring their policy goals with them.

He alleged that officials in Washington signaled companies could face scrutiny if they did not align with emerging DEI priorities.

"That's describing a world where through government lawsuits, but also through private lawsuits, a lot of pressure was being brought on corporate America," said Skinner, whose previous work included time with the Arizona attorney general’s office under Mark Brnovich, who led the state’s largest consumer-protection lawsuit against Google over location tracking.

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Skinner compared the strategy to "plaintiff-shopping" in class-action litigation, where a firm may be paid millions in settlement while it "negotiates a coupon for you" for the applicant-plaintiffs.

One of the firms cited in the study — which Skinner noted as alleged proof of its political persuasions — had filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on behalf of Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., citing the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 after Jan. 6.

AFC’s report cited a 2019 shareholder-derivative suit brought by Cohen-Milstein against Alphabet — Google’s parent — on behalf of New York union pensioners, alleging it breached fiduciary duties and covered up a data breach and sexual harassment allegations.

The statement from Cohen-Milstein on the suit alleged Alphabet "fostered" a misogynistic "‘brogrammer’ culture," and later celebrated the settlement "fundamentally altering Alphabet’s workforce policies," including a $310 million "financial commitment to DEI initiatives" and its position toward "workplace equity."

AFC found the lawsuit "functioned as a tool for advocacy groups to push a comprehensive expansion of the DEI agenda at one of the biggest companies with a massive budgetary commitment, all through litigation rather than legislative action or shareholder demand."

Cohen-Milstein did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. 

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Skinner’s team also cited a case in which the Obama Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) allegedly did an end run around legislators and established new DEI practices at another major company through aggressive litigation.

Bass Pro/Outdoor World agreed to pay $10.5 million and provide "other significant relief" to settle a hiring discrimination suit brought by Obama’s EEOC, according to the agency.

The administration claimed Bass Pro Shops discriminated against minority applicants but, instead of a strictly cash settlement, it reached agreements to mandate EEO training, affirmative diversity outreach and the appointment of a DEI director, according to AFC’s research.

In an ongoing climate-related suit — in which Honolulu is suing Sunoco via the Sher-Edling firm — the Hawaiian capital reportedly alleged public nuisance claims and sought to hold oil companies responsible for climate damages.

AFC’s report found the suit seeks not only monetary damages for "climate-related infrastructure costs," but also disgorgement of profits, climate-mitigation actions and other corporate reforms.

"These cases attempt to use courts to impose climate policy, effectively putting judges in charge of energy and climate regulation rather than elected legislatures and administrative agencies with technical expertise," the report said. Fox News Digital reached out to Sher-Edling.

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In another case, red-state government employees were granted access to transgender health care after a staff accountant surnamed Rich and other plaintiffs sued over a health plan that denied coverage of transgender care.

A $365,000 settlement was lodged and split among the defendants and an LGBTQ-rights group, while Georgia agreed to make sweeping policy changes to cover transgender care — something that would have typically gone through the legislature and likely failed with a Republican majority in charge.

The main litigant in that case was the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) — which has now merged into Advocates for Trans Equality (ATE).

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"Strategic litigation by advocacy organizations successfully bypassed Georgia’s legislative process to impose highly contested healthcare policy through judicial decree, demonstrating how activist organizations achieve policy goals through courts rather than democratic processes," AFC found in its reporting analysis.

ATE did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. 

Impact litigation has long been used by advocacy groups across the political spectrum to advance policy goals through the courts. Right-leaning groups have also been successful in forging settlement agreements that secure policy-related outcomes rather than strictly cash settlements.

In CRPA v. LASD, a district court ruled that members of a Second Amendment advocacy group can apply for non-resident concealed-carry permits in California.

The 2025 case saw a judge rule in favor of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, requiring Sacramento to accept permit applications from any out-of-state resident who is a member of a number of Second Amendment organizations.

Skinner told Fox News Digital that the tide, at least at the EEOC, has changed, citing recent remarks by new Trump-appointed Chairwoman Andrea Lucas, saying that her tack instead will be to probe corporate diversity programs and enforce against DEI.

"That’s the crucial part about each of [the report’s] cases, it’s not, oh, some company allegedly discriminated against women or minorities —  they might have, right. The problem with those cases and something that I think you would want to highlight is it's not that somebody allegedly was mistreated and got money. It's that the lawsuit was used to unlock all sorts of other bells and whistles that were not directly about anybody who was hurt, if they were hurt."

In Lucas’ comments to Reuters in December, she said she would "shift [EEOC] to a conservative view of civil rights."

AFC’s report concluded by summarizing that "lawsuits are increasingly used not to resolve disputes or compensate victims, but to impose policy changes that advocates have been unable to achieve through democratic processes."

"This transformation represents a fundamental challenge to democratic governance. When lawyers and activists can impose sweeping policy changes without having to go to the ballot box, or even after having been denied at the ballot box, the everyday consumers stop having a direct say in the products and choices that are before them on a daily basis."