CEO of Parsons, Carey Smith
WIthin Days of President Donald Trump, the January 2025 executive order, eliminating diversity, heritage and inclusion programs, Parsons Corp., a significant federal contractor, published a statement quietly on his website saying that the company was providing its award -winning program.
All DEI material was apparently out of its website on January 29, with the statement on the subject published on February 2.
In order to fulfill the guidance of the federal agencies, the company said that “it would no longer have goals or incentives based on demographic representation and that it has eliminated all the pages and websites Dei from January 2025”.
The company did not announce the change with a press release.
Nor did Dei play a role in the company on February 26, the quarterly results conference for investors, when executives, including CEO Carey Smith, spoke of the position of their services to attend to the administration’s expense priorities.
When asked about Dei last month, a spokesman sent via e -mail that Parsons “must fulfill Federal Mandates related to DEI” and “taken the appropriate measures to keep the directive being fulfilled.”
Parsons, which is a lot of federal government programs, was possibly among the first major engineering and construction contractors who retreated to the administration that the administration is attacking as formal and illegal forms of discrimination.
With headquarters in Chantilly, Va., Parsons is significantly based on the revenue and benefits of its segment of federal solutions, based on the work for the U.S. government agencies, including the NASA Defense and Security Departments and NASA. In the first quarter of 2025, the unit generated income of $ 842.5 million, about half of the total $ 1.6 billion.
The firm’s critical infrastructure unit supports infrastructure projects funded by the state and state and state, such as transport and environmental remediation.
Smith has defended Dei since he joined Parsons in November 2016 and was used by his current roles in 2021 and 2022, respectively. “One of the first things I did was plant a program of diversity, equity and inclusion,” I saidInterview by Na Society of Women Engineers last year. “”I thought it was critically important to ensure that we had this 100% inclusive and committed labor force to the whole company, ”
Among the highlights of the program were the statistics that Parsons published the percentage of minorities and women of its staff, and in its management classifies the administration’s executive orders and subsequent orientations go far beyond the definition of statistical goals, and explicitly prohibits any resource or making any decision based on race or gender.
As a justification, administration lawyers say that the DEI programs, instead of fulfilling the spirit, instead of violating the Civil Rights Law and the United States Constitution.
On the first day in office, Trump issued executive orders 14173 and 14151, fulfilling his campaign promise to end what he called “Marxists” policies Dei. Order 14173 requires federal contractors to certify that they do not operate “illegal” programs and Order 14151 obliges the end of contracts “related to equity”.
Challenges on Dei’s orders
The opponents responded quickly.
One of the legal challenges, filed in a Federal Court of Baltimore, is led by the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. He claims that Trump’s orders, based on his vagueness, intervenes with the Congressional spending authority and have a potential to inhibit free expression.
Another challenge, by Chicago Women in Trades, a group of women in the union construction, asked a federal judge in Chicago to issue a preliminary order on April 14. The court order blocks the certification requirement and allows the financing of federal subsidies of the group to continue. In the order, the judge ruled that the courts are likely to definitely annul the strikes of the orders, such as certification, completion and execution requirements, to compromise free expression, lack of clarity and overcome private companies private companies.
Sabrina Talukder, a senior adviser to the Economic Justice Project of the Civil Rights Committee of the Law, in a statement that the ordinance will help women in Chicago in the shops to challenge the application of Trump’s orders, who are aimed at “the nature of the” mission and critical work on “dismantling barriers for women, especially women of color, in specialized shops”.
Despite his pre -election criticism in Dei, Trump’s executive Thomas F. Powers, a Political Science professor at Carthage College, unexpectedly wrote the orders he has written widely about diversity and affirmative action programs.
In a recent article, Powers wrote that Trump’s orders “have even surprised the conservatives [including himself]That they have tracked these problems closely. “In addition to saying goodbye to the commissioners of the Employment Opportunity Commission to make it unable to hinder their anti-DEI efforts, Trump eliminated all federal employees.
Federal contractors will be mainly fulfilled, the powers provided for in an email. “Some big companies will resist but Most will do nothing to endanger their government revenue, “he said.” They were happy to follow the law when they made them X, Yiz, but now they would go in the other way. “
Business and defense groups had recognized the Parsons program with numerous awards. These included the Human Rights Rights Campaign Award in 2023/2024, a place on the list of best employers for the diversity of Washington Business Journal and the Washington Business Journal Corporate Diversity Index Award also in 2023.
In order to achieve its goals, Parson created “employee business resource groups” for black, Asian, women, military, Hispanic and LGBTQ2IA+employees. Open to all employees, these groups facilitated professional development, networks and cultural awareness. Training and coaching was provided. Parsons appointed the global program that cultivated a responsible business program and published annual reports of his work.
It is still unclear whether the Parson’s DEI staff continues to work or reassigned in the new features.
Guidance for the future
To navigate the Dei Shifting landscape, Denisha P. McKenzie, a member of the CDF Labor Act in Irvine, California, says that companies must oversee the requirements of the state and local government, work with legal advice and audit and review their existing Dei policies and practices.
Trump Dei’s problems are not always “consistent with the laws against state discrimination and vice versa,” says McKenzie.
In the blog publications, she and a co -author advise even more to disobedly from the efforts of employment and training opportunities to distinguish between inclusive dissemination and prohibited fired treatment.
In order to comply with the DEI guide of the Administration’s Management Office, he wrote that companies should be assured that affinity groups provide resources accessible to everyone, avoiding exclusive benefits.
Corp Parson Programs had another important element.
The company also did a practice of measuring and reporting the makeup of its staff and new hires, a practice recently abandoned by Starbucks, the CAFE chain.
By 2023, Parsons reported that 29% of all employees and 38% of the executive leadership were women. Among North -Americans, the company reported the percentages of its current staff as white (53%) Asian (23%) black (10%) and Hispanic (11%).
The breakdown between the managers were Asian (10.7%), black (6.3%) and Hispanic (7.6%), a significant increase in the levels of 2019. More than one in three new hires were female, Parsons reported, with Asians who included 22%of this grroup, and blacks and Hispanics at 13%each.
Contracting based on racial or ethnic percentages, according to the DEI guide issued by the current Department of Justice and Equal Employment Opportunities of the United States, violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Law of 1964. The guide prohibits “Work action motivated – Even in part – by race, sex or other characteristic protected from Title VII, according to Analysis of the matter by the law firm Jackson Walker.
Another law firm, Ogletree Deakins, said in a recent analysis that EOO orientation prohibits “fired treatment related to DEI” in recruitment, dismissal, promotion, demotional, compensation and benefits of strips, as well as a treatment fired in training, mentoring, network or interviews.
Exactly, when the problems will be resolved, the air is very much in the air, but companies may believe that it is of interest to them, as they did, make significant decisions about what to do before all legal problems are decided.
With additional reports of Richard Korman
