America First Legal launched a federal civil rights lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch, the company that makes the controversial Bud Light beer. The complaint said that the company was discriminating in the name of diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI).
People and owners have had a lot to say about the move to work with self-described transgender social media figure Dylan Mulvaney. On Monday, a civil rights group called America First Legal filed a lawsuit against Anheuser-Busch, saying that the company’s employee programs break civil rights rules. Stephen Miller, who used to be a top assistant in the Trump government, started America First Legal.
The goal of Anheuser-Busch’s leadership accelerator programs is to give people who belong to historically underrepresented groups “formal mentoring, executive interaction, and a leadership development curriculum” when they join the company full-time. Applications from “Black, Latinx, and Native American” communities were given more weight than applications from “white” and “Asian” communities. The United Negro College Fund says that Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser brand took part in a “illegal race-based scholarship and internship program” that gave money to 25 black students interested in culinary sciences. America First Legal found out about this.
In its most recent annual report, the company stressed its efforts to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). One of these efforts was to increase the “overall representation of women in top leadership positions.” America First Legal says that Anheuser-Busch’s “definition of a woman” is probably not “limited to biological females” because they work with Mulvaney, who made his supposed gender change public on TikTok and made marketing deals with a lot of big companies.
“Iconic American brands like Anheuser-Busch have become shells of what their founders wanted them to be,” says Gene Hamilton, vice president and general counsel of America First Legal. “This is because weak-kneed corporate leaders often give in to idealists who are always hungry for a new idea of “social justice.” Racist thoughts and deeds at work go against what it means to be an American. If big companies in the U.S. are allowed to publicly discriminate against some people, race and gender equality will never be reached in the country.
In the past few years, organizations have heard similar claims of violations of civil rights based on race and gender. Mark Perry, a retired economics professor, has filed hundreds of Title IX and Title VI complaints against academic programs. Many of these complaints have been upheld by the federal government.
Since Bud Light and Mulvaney started working together, sales have been bad for weeks.
Anheuser-Busch CEO Brendan Whitworth talked about what happened in a message that came out late last week. He did not apologize to customers or talk about transgenderism, though. The CEO said, “We never meant to add to a debate that makes people angry.” The point is for everyone to talk to each other over a beer.
For example, at a gathering two years ago, protesters poured Anheuser-Busch beer into a gutter to show that they didn’t like how the company helped pay for lawmakers who wanted to stop extreme gender theory from getting to young people. Through different marketing and internal diversity programs, the company is trying hard to get a bigger part of the LGBTQ market.