FIRST ON FOX: Conservative pro-Trump law group America First Legal (AFL) filed complaints Monday with the Tennessee Attorney General and the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC), alleging Cracker Barrel is maintaining discriminatory employment practices stemming from its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
The complaints point to public documents, internal reports, and Cracker Barrel’s own language to allege the company maintains illegal DEI frameworks, such as race- and gender-conscious hiring, leadership and promotion pipelines, which provide benefits to employees on the basis of protected characteristics. AFL also slammed Cracker Barrel for rebranding its dedicated DEI website to “Culture and Belonging,” arguing that the name change did not halt Cracker Barrel from using “diversity” as a proxy for race or sex.
“Americans are fed up with major American corporations serving up DEI as if it is entirely okay,” said AFL legal counsel, Will Scolinos. “Treating people differently because of the color of their skin or their sex is not only wrong, it is illegal. AFL has fought DEI since the Biden Administration spent four years celebrating and encouraging its wholesale implementation across the country. Now, companies are retreating from the term ‘DEI’ but retaining their discriminatory policies. Cracker Barrel and other American corporations must take discrimination by any name off the menu once and for all.”
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AFL’s complaint points to Cracker Barrel’s Business Resource Groups (BRGs) as one example of alleged discrimination, outlined in public Securities and Exchange Commission documents, Cracker Barrel’s website and other places.
According to AFL, these groups offer employment benefits only available to employees belonging to certain races or sexes.
The “Be Bold” BRG helps “cultivate and develop Black Leaders within the Cracker Barrel organization utilizing allyship, mentorship, and education to create a path to continued excellence,” Cracker Barrel’s website states. Meanwhile, the HOLA BRG “promote[s] Hispanic and Latino culture through hiring, developing, and retaining talent within Cracker Barrel.” Other BRGs revolve around LGBT folks, “neurodiversity,” and women’s issues, among others.
Another part of Cracker Barrel’s alleged promotion of discriminatory DEI practices cited by AFL includes the company’s focus on “attract[ing], develop[ing] and retain[ing] high performing talent with diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives,” which is laid out on Cracker Barrel’s “Culture, Belonging and Inclusion” website underneath the heading “STRATEGY TURNS INTO ACTION.”
This focus on promoting and hiring based on “diverse” characteristics can be seen in action via Cracker Barrel’s categorization in internal company reports of board members as “Diverse” or “Not-Diverse,” AFL points out.
Per a public filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Cracker Barrel notes that when “evaluating potential candidates for Board membership” the nominating committee “considers, among other things … diversity of age, gender, race, and ethnic background.”
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Cracker Barrel also proudly touts its Diverse Employee Leadership Talent Advancement (DELTA) program in public filings, which the company describes as an effort meant to identify “diverse managers who have exhibited all the skills we value in our top-performing managers” and position them “to advance to their next role.”
“Our new, robust diversity training includes education throughout all levels of the Company about unconscious and implicit bias and focuses on creating an inclusive culture and fostering a sense of belonging for all,” a Securities and Exchange Commission filing discussing the DELTA program also adds.
AFL argues that, in practice, these policies from Cracker Barrel appear to have achieved their intended effect, with the company’s representation of women and ethnic minorities among Cracker Barrel professional staff, store level management and hourly workers, having each increased by at least 3% since fiscal year 2022. AFL said only women hourly staff remained constant across the same period, though Cracker Barrel touts in its Securities and Exchange Commission filings that 70% of its employee population is female.
“Cracker Barrel’s policies openly discriminate against heterosexual, white, and male employees in favor of diverse employees,” AFL’s complaint, which asserts the policies violate Tennessee’s Human Rights Act and Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, argues.
“Discrimination advocates — under the guise of ‘diversity’ and ‘equity’ — have for years claimed that straight white men must be treated differently than diverse individuals by holding them to a higher evidentiary standard; however, the Supreme Court has directly addressed this claim, holding that ‘Title VII does not impose such a heightened standard on majority-group plaintiffs,'” the complaint continues. “Decades of case law hold that — no matter how well-intentioned — policies that seek to impose racial balancing are prohibited by Title VII.”
Through its complaint, AFL is calling for Cracker Barrel and the EEOC to launch investigations into the matter, including a review of internal communications and a probe into whether the company used contractors with “reckless disregard” to circumvent civil rights laws. AFL is also requesting the Tennessee Attorney General and EEOC enforce state and federal laws that would compel the company to halt its allegedly discriminatory DEI practices.
Cracker Barrel did not respond to repeated requests for comment in time for publication.
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