Trump Admin Sues Coca-Cola for Daring to Let Women Network Without Men
One of the most non-insane things about Trump is that he really loves to crack open a cold can of Diet Coke—so much so that one of his first moves in his second term was (alongside condemning scores of women to die) bringing back an Oval Office button that alerts staffers to bring in his favorite bubbly can on a silver platter. But even the president’s favorite soda isn’t safe from his trigger-happy crusade against anything that smells faintly of—gasp!—DEI.
The Washington Post reported this week that, in February, the administration sued Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast for hosting a women’s networking event, specifically claiming that male employees were, as a result……………… subject to “discrimination on the basis of sex.
The event was held in September 2024—so before Trump was re-elected—at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut. It was likely an effort to offset how 85% of the distributor’s employees are men, and an opportunity for the 250 female employees to freely network among themselves without some gilet’ed geezer dominating the entire conversation—I assume.
The theme was “Embrace Your Authenticity,” and speaking to the WaPo, one of the participants said it was fun, energizing, and useful. (Coincidence? None of those descriptors describes men!) Another woman told the outlet it was “very empowering for women to get in the same room,” and that “everyone could just kind of be free and talk about their struggles.”
Alas, some little bitch (he/him) from Londonderry, New Hampshire, then filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) over the conference, which the office picked up in mid-January—just as the Trump administration was filing back in. This was also about a month after Andrea Lucas, Trump’s repeat pick for EEOC chair, called on white men who have “experienced any discrimination at work” to contact the agency ASAP. The EEOC filed a letter in January saying it had “reasonable cause” to believe the Coca-Cola distributor violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination on the subject of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Speaking to WaPo, a former chair of the EEOC—which was established in 1965—said the office typically handles instances of “substantial workplace harm,” and not so much specific events. “There has been a sustained effort to locate a DEI-focused challenge for at least a year,” she said. “It’s telling us they didn’t have a stronger case to file.”
Lucas, especially, has gone all-in on pushing a specific vendetta against women’s networking events. Speaking to NPR, she said that while she understands such events happen, “commonness doesn’t necessarily make it permissible.” “How would you feel if a company paid for all of its male executives to go to a two-day retreat … and said to all the women, ‘Sorry, you gotta stay home. Get back to work?’” Ranting about the matter on LinkedIn, she also said the conference is an instance of “new girls clubs” that simply replace “old boys clubs.” Well, Andrea… don’t threaten us with a good time.